Chaim Bloom is about to be the PoBO for the Cards, so Story will definitely have a market even if he broke every bone in his body tomorrow.
Story's End?
- Thread starter Manramsclan
- Start date
I’m just happy that Story’s off to a good start. Concerned about his paltry walk total, but if that improves and he keeps hitting we’re in business.
47 mil for two years is not a lot of money, and teams love short term commitments. He has a ways to go, but yes, his opting out and getting two years at an higher AAV is absolutely a possibility. Guys who can handle SS and hit with an OPS+ of 100 are pretty valuable, look what the Giants gave Willy Adames. If Story can play 130 games while doing that, at a minimum the Sox could trade him without eating any of his deal. The Braves traded for Chris Sale and gave him an extension.
Only if they aren't competing this year. If he's good enough where he has value at the deadline then he's much better than Mayer at present.
Sure. That's why I said he has a long way to go. But Chris Sale pitched 177 IP last year. It's not some remote, 1 in a million chance that Story has simply been unlucky and can put together a more or less healthy season.
It is a lot of money. Story and his contract come in just inside the top 50 for all MLB salaries in 2025. So on average, he’s paid as though he should be the second best player on your team.
Sometimes you have to lie in the bed that you’ve made. Paying big dollars to players who can’t play or produce is among the most surefire formulas that will screw up your team. So if you’re going to be competitive, you have to make the right decisions with your top dollar contracts. That is something the Red Sox have done poorly with in the last 5+ years, and I feel they are trying to be much more careful with lately.
With Story, I personally don’t see any reason to think that his string of injuries will continue, but realistically almost every team seems to lose at least one key/star player for half or most of the year almost every year. Pitchers drop like flies. If Mayer weren’t waiting in the wings, they really wouldn’t be much pressure or a dilemma here. It’s good to see him start well, and reestablish some value for himself and for the Sox. But I don’t think the Sox should be frivolous with money just to make a space for Mayer. They need Trevor Story to reestablish his value, so that hopefully they can put the team in a maximally strong position as Mayer matures.
Given MM’s development, it looks likely that it will make sense to move on from Story before the end of his contract. While I don’t think they’ll ever get full value for that money in return, and any trade will be subsidized to some degree, I think it would be roster suicide to eat that $47 million in whole. Hopefully value can be reestablished to the point where you can at least get something like a 2/3 return on that investment before moving on.
Mayer’s .567 OPS in AAA does not scream that we should be pushing Story out the door. Mayer’s a great prospect, but he could stand to get a few hundred PA at AAA.
Of course. I'm not pushing him out the door yet. But it's nice to imagine a scenario where doing so would be a little easier.
Story is now up to .311/.329/.459 after his fourth multihit game in a week. I'd feel better about him keeping this up if he would take a few more walks, but he's been hitting quite well while most of the offense has been quite cold.
1) That's a falacy, because it ignores every player who hasn't reached free agency.
2) It also ignores that it's short years and medium money, which isn't a big risk.
3) He's currently T-55th among all position players in bWAR and T-38th in fWAR.
4) As a rough filter for point #1, only 32 players age 27+ have more bWAR than him, 23 age 28+, 18 age 29+.
Pete Alonso got $54/2 after posting 2.6 bWAR at age 29
Tyler O'Neil got $49.5/3 after posting 2.6 bWAR at age 29
You basically have to be an above average player to earn that money.
His BABIP is .417 while his LD% is 23. That is not sustainable in the long term. Even if he took a few more walks you would expect his batting average and OBP to drop at least 50 points (probably closer to 100 pts). Right now he is chopping more than half the pitches he makes contact with. His launch angle is extremely low. He is getting by on speed and sluggish defense by the other teams but even there he has been extremely lucky.
This does not square with the data, or at least only partially squares with it. His launch angle is not extremely low, it's about average. Expect batting average of .282 based on his profile, mostly because he's got a very high HH% even if the the LA is middling. He's barreling a good percentage of balls. Anybody who's been watching the games has seen that he's hitting a lot of balls very hard.
Altogether he's been about an average hitter. The chase % is terrible, obviously.
How does the data not square with the data? His BABIP is .417 and his LD is 23.5. The chart from Baseball Savant doesn't change that. In fact it supports what I am saying that he is not squaring up to the ball hence the low launch angle. He is hitting over 50% GB. If he is chopping fastballs, then the exit velocity will be over 95 mph. It won't increase his overall BABIP.
That's not what you said, or not all of what you said. You said his batting average would drop by 50 or 100 points and his launch angle was extremely low. The data and the savant calculations obviously disagree. And again, his launch angle is in the sweet spot a perfectly average amount of the time, even if the average launch angle is low.
Not all groundballs are made alike. Some are scorched, and a lot of those still get through the infield.
And again, there's data for this shit too. This stuff about him "chopping a lot of balls" is just not true. Only 6 of the balls he's hit 95 mph or harder were "chopped," and only 11 of them had a LA lower than 10 degrees (and anything at or just over 5 has a better than 50% chance of going for a hit ). A lot of the "ground balls" he's hitting have a better than 50% chance of going for a hit because they're not topped, they're scorched, and very nearly line drives.
The chart for batted balls hit 99 mph with a launch angle of six degrees looks like this:
At 5 degrees, you're still hitting .537. At 2 degrees, you're still gonna hit .472. At -2 degrees, you're still hitting .372 on those balls.
Hitting the ball hard gets hits, plain and simple.
His expected batting average is still 282 and his expected slugging is still 445, so yeah he's getting a little lucky right now but not that lucky the way he's making hard contact
Exactly. This is obviously the first thing Ricardo glossed over in looking at the chart. So obvious I don't know why I didn't say it.
30 points from xBA to average isn't a little lucky. It is extremely lucky / breaks correlation. The issue is his launch angle is SO low while his hard hit% is so high. That isn't normal. He isn't squaring on the ball which means his expected slugging would be WAY off. Also his xBA is way out of whack with his career (as is his launch angle). Everything in the stats align with the eye test which is Trevor is becoming slap hitter this year.
Once again you need to look and when you do you see he is grounding the ball over 50%. That isn't good especially playing at Fenway where you would want an increased LD% especially as a RHH. His xSLG is being carried by his sprint speed but once again if you a majority of the balls you put in play are GB, you can't expect a huge SLG%
The "eye test" of multiple people in this thread disagrees with you, as does the data. You've cherry picked two stats that fit your narrative while deliberately ignoring the rest. He's hitting the ball 30% harder than average. Hes fiftieth percentile for launch angle sweet spot. He is not slapping the ball and his launch angle is not "so" low. All of this info is available in this thread. A third of the balls he hits are in the launch angle sweet spot. That's pretty much exactly average. Combined with a HH% over 50, that's going to generate a good BABIP. Not as good as what he's produced, but still good. Which is why his xBA is .280.
And, again, not all ground balls are created equal. Many of them go for hits more than 50% of the time. A lot of his "groundballs" are nearly line drives at the very edge of the dirt. Those go for hits a ton of the tine.
How can on be a "slap hitter" when over half the balls they put in play are hard hit?
Like, Story's horrific chase and whiff percentages should give us plenty to complain about. We don't need to invent stuff about him "slapping the ball" when he's scorching the ball all over the place and has been for a week. That's 9 hard hit balls out of his last 14 balls in play. 8 of which were over 100 mph. Only three "choppers", and all of them under 95 EV.
Because Hard Hit is just a measurement of exit velocity. A hard hit ball means your exit velocity is 95 mph or higher. Doesn't matter if it goes down or up so long as it goes away from the hitter. Average exit velocity is 90 mph. Ideally you would want a launch angle of +25 with that. Trevor's is 10 which is awful. High exit velocity plus very low launch angle equals chop hitting. That is why even though he has an near elite hard hit % his groundball % is over 50.
Edit - You guys can't really be this dense. You must have noticed he isn't driving the ball. Like most of his hits are groundballs. I don't understand how this is hard to understand on a basic level if you have been watching him. He has gotten around on some pitches.
A large portion of his hits are infield hits. He isn't driving the ball. He has pulled three hanging curve balls. He is having a ton of problems keeping up with fastballs.
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What's absolute and utter nonsense is the idea that Story's batting average should be 100 points lower. A little lucky so far? Sure. But not that lucky over the sample size of 76 plate appearances. He'll need to start walking more to stabilize his OBP, but nobody here is claiming otherwise.
If the average exit velocity is 90 and you're hitting a lot of ground balls at 95+ then you aren't a slap hitter
I'm honestly laughing because a launch angle of 10 is quite literally in the sweet spot. You're really talking out of your ass right now.
I don't know where you're getting this info. A launch angle over 25 so long as it isn't also over 32 degrees, is not only ideal, it's a home run a lot of the time.
You guys are just too dense to realize Story's 10% average launch angle makes him a slap hitter. Along with other notable 10% launch angle slap hitters Teoscar Hernandez, Max Muncy,, Bo Bichette, Elly Da La Cruz, JR Realmuto, and Juan Soto.
Laughing.
This, by the way, is a ball hit with a launch angle of 11 degrees by Trevor Story. Basically the definition of a line drive. That was hit over 100mph. And here's one hit with a launch angle of 10 (but which was only hit 75mph and thus did not get out of the infield).
And just while we're on the subject, average launch angle isn't a good way to judge a guy, since it's just that, an average. Percentage of balls in the sweet spot between 8 and 32 degrees is the better way, and Story is in there an average amount of the time, which combined with his HH% is producing the high batting average.
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None of those guys have as high as Trevor Story's GB rate (Elly De La Cruz is the closest) or his inflated BABIP. All of their BABIP are more in line with their average.
I don't get the point of this. Like what are trying to say? The hit chart is wrong and those supposed infield hits are actually line drives?
Trevor Story is not the hitter he use to be. He cannot get around on fastballs like he use to. Instead he is striving for contact and using his legs for hits. That said, at the current rate you would suspect regression. It is not likely he is going to be able to maintain 45% of his hits in play being infield hits. None of this is crazy. You can watch baseball and see this. You don't need to be a scout.
If you think there is a world where .311/.321/.459 is going to get improved on, the numbers do not support that reality. The eye test does not support that reality. If you want to bet on it, there are plenty of casinos that would happily take that action.
Trevor has been better than I thought he would be but he has decidedly been *shrug* top 10-15 SS. If he can stay healthy, he will be worth his salary this year which would be a first for his contract. I really really hope that is enough for him to opt out or for someone to make an offer. I would rather have Mayer learning at the spot than another year of the decline of Trevor Story.
30 points of xBA in 76 PA is two "extra" hits relative to an average hitter: it's the difference between going 21/74 and 23/74. At this sample size, "luck" comes in 15-point increments. If he were still up 30 points after 400 PA that would be +10 net hits from luck and you'd have a better point.
Your unwillingness to do ANY of the work to support your argument is astounding.
"Supposed infield hits" -- that's where the ball landed, not where it ended! Nearly all of them went into the outfield, were hit extremely hard, and the fielders had no chance. Many of them hit the ground exactly once in the infield and then we're in the outfield. They are more appropriately line drives that hit edge between the outfield and the infield than infield hits. These are, again, nearly all balls with EV's over 100mph and expected BA's over .500.
Here's one.
Here's another.
And another.
This one really is a ground ball, but again, hit over 105 mph, never close to an out.
This one, again, is hit on a line and hits the ground once before going into the outfield.
This one is on the ground most of the way but is absolutely a burner, hit very hard.
Only three of those balls were softly hit, or what we would call "infield hits."
One
This is absolutely an "infield hit."
As is this one.
And guess what? There's no shortage of guys with ground ball percentages around 50% who manage to be average to good hitters, so you can scrap that goal post to.
From 2024: 12 out of 17 guys on this list had xwOBA at or over .320 (about league average). And 11 were at or around .320 for wOBA.
Again, nobody is claiming he's suddenly a good hitter again. But the idea that he's not producing good contact or that because he's hitting a lot of groundballs he's necessarily is bad is silly too.
He's a good defensive shortstop and looks to be an average hitter who, if he could stop chasing, would be even better. That's all anyone is saying.
I think it's fair to say that Story will probably regress from being 23% better than league average and he's enjoyed some batted ball luck.
I think it's also fair to acknowledge that he's been playing well, and that given how little he's played in recent years, there probably is some rust/timing issues he working through despite the hot start. More likely, if he remains healthy he should be around a league average hitter, and a really good base runner. That coupled with acceptable to really good defense at SS (elbow dependent) adds up to a very nice ball player. Overall, we should be really happy with how this season has gone for Story thus far. Overall, we should still be expectinga change in SS sometime next year or the year after (whether that be Mayer, Arias, or a trade/FA).
I think given his medical history, he probably doesn't opt out, even if he finishes the season witha 125 wRC+. Teams are going to be nervous giving him more and they should be. The dude hasn't played 100 games in a season since 2021. Even if that comes to pass, I'd still be prepping for Mayer in 26, because givent he history... he's going to get opportunities
I think it's also fair to acknowledge that he's been playing well, and that given how little he's played in recent years, there probably is some rust/timing issues he working through despite the hot start. More likely, if he remains healthy he should be around a league average hitter, and a really good base runner. That coupled with acceptable to really good defense at SS (elbow dependent) adds up to a very nice ball player. Overall, we should be really happy with how this season has gone for Story thus far. Overall, we should still be expectinga change in SS sometime next year or the year after (whether that be Mayer, Arias, or a trade/FA).
I think given his medical history, he probably doesn't opt out, even if he finishes the season witha 125 wRC+. Teams are going to be nervous giving him more and they should be. The dude hasn't played 100 games in a season since 2021. Even if that comes to pass, I'd still be prepping for Mayer in 26, because givent he history... he's going to get opportunities
I mean, we're just a vigorous coughing fit from going right back to that narrative.
10% is where ground balls turn into line drives, so yeah if you have a launch angle average of 10.4 a 49% ground ball rate and a 53% hard hit rate it means that mathematically many of those ground balls have to be hard hit balls that are right on the border of being classified as line drives
I've been pushing for Mayer to be called up and Hamilton to be sent down. Having said that, let's not pretend Mayer hasn't been snake bitten by injuries over the last few seasons either. He also only has a couple of weeks of AAA on his resume.
I personally think by the end of the year (health permitting) the best Red Sox lineup probably has Mayer at 2B, Campbell in LF, Duran in CF and Rafaela on the bench.
Not sure why I bothered, but I went back through every box score, but he has exactly 2 hits that were fielded by an infielder, one on March 28th and one of April 12th. I'm not sure if anywhere tracks infield hits, but 2 in 18 games out of 23 hits doesn't exactly scream "using his legs for hits". It's also just a tiny bit lower than 45%.
It's been pointed out before in this very thread, but Mayer has a .550 OPS in Worcester at the moment. No idea about batted-ball data, but let's maybe let him get above .700 or so before we start talking about calling him up to supplant the well-compensated incumbent.
EDIT: To clarify, I'm not saying anything about his medium- to long-range future or suggesting his prospect status has dimmed or anything like that, just saying that he's not any kind of immediate upgrade over Trevor Story as of 4/16/25.
EDIT: To clarify, I'm not saying anything about his medium- to long-range future or suggesting his prospect status has dimmed or anything like that, just saying that he's not any kind of immediate upgrade over Trevor Story as of 4/16/25.
He’s looking pretty damn good to me. A rejuvenated Trevor Story makes this team incredibly interesting.
His injury history makes him feel older but the man is still only 32. Would be really a big bonus if they could get a couple healthy seasons out of him this year and next. He can still play. He’s looked like his days in Colorado this season…makes you dream a bit more ambitious for 2025.
I'm just waiting for the "but his arm will fly off, or he will be struck by a meteor, etc. etc... because he's injury prone"