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Troy Tulowtizki may force the Colorado Rockies' hand. Today, Tulowitzki will be meeting his agent Paul Cohen to decide whether or not he wants to request a trade.
If he does, the Rockies will be sure to have a number of suitors that will want to upgrade at shortstop. One of those suitors, the New York Mets, do not seem likely to jump right in to the Tulowitzki pool.
The team has had a plan over the past couple of years (really since Sandy Alderson took over) to acquire young pitching and shed bad contracts that plagued the team before Alderson's arrival.
That plan does not include blowing up the talent pipeline
They don't plan on destroying that in order to bring in Tulowitzki:
Obviously, #Mets can't talk publicly about another team's player, but internal thinking remains same on Tulo: not a trade target for now.
— David Lennon (@DPLennon) May 13, 2015
#Mets spent long time collecting young pitchers and waiting for bad contracts to expire. Not about to blow up both plans on Tulo for now.
— David Lennon (@DPLennon) May 13, 2015
A massive asking price is also going to shy away teams, including the Mets. Back in December 2014, the two teams were discussing a trade for the All-Star shortstop, in which the asking price would have supposedly made fans go nuts, according to Adam Rubin of ESPN.
The Tulo is about to hit the fan
The Mets are considered one of the top teams for the Rockies to trade with because of their depth in the minors, but they aren't willing to pay the high price.
In that case, the Mets may try to wait out the Rockies in the hopes that the price comes down, or that they can find another cheaper option at shortstop, like a Jean Segura.
So which teams could go after Tulo?
For the Rockies, that means trying to find another potential match. Joel Sherman of the NY Post listed the Pirates, Mariners and Padres as other fits for Tulo.
The Padres have a deep farm system, but tapped into it a bit in the offseason when they went on a trade frenzy. The Mariners have a lot of top end talent, like Tajiwan Walker, with whom they presumably don't want to part. And the Pirates don't have as good as a farm system as the other three teams. So where's that leave the Rockies?
The Rockies are going to have a tough time meeting Tulo's request if they don't lower their asking price a bit. The longer the drama between Tulo and the Rockies plays out, the worse it is for both sides. If he does ask for a trade, the Rockies are better off trading him as soon as possible.