Troy Tulowitzki Is the Key to the Blue Jays’ Season

This would have been the final season for Jose Reyes in a Toronto Blue Jays uniform. The maligned former shortstop is now a member of the New York Mets, receiving only the league minimum salary in his current club, while the Colorado Rockies send $22 million his way—the result of the former star being unceremoniously released last summer in the wake of a domestic violence suspension and the degradation of his once incredible skill set, which was becoming more apparent by the day as his time in Toronto wound down.

Reyes had a mini renaissance when he joined up with the Mets last summer. His numbers at the plate were his best since his first year in Toronto—the unforgettably forgettable 2013 season, in which so many Blue Jays fans’ big hopes and dreams ended up sprawled on the dirt in Kansas City along with Reyes when, in mid-April, he injured his ankle sliding into second base there.

Reyes’ Blue Jays career never really got past that moment. Over the course of the following two seasons his power and his ability to take a walk would erode, and ultimately so would his defence. But somewhere out there a parallel universe exists where Alex Anthopoulos wasn’t keen or brave enough to recognize his mistake, and where the Colorado Rockies weren’t desperate enough for an infusion of young pitching or cavalier enough to deal their franchise player in order to get it. Somewhere there’s a universe where Jose Reyes is still the Blue Jays shortstop, getting set to play out the string of his contract and end a disappointing tenure in Toronto as fans and the club alike wonder what comes next for that all-important position on the diamond.

If you’re a Blue Jays fan, that universe is a real fuckin’ ugly one.