The Red Sox Should Be Worried About Trevor Story

We need to talk about Trevor Story. The shortstop has played through three of the six years on his contract with the Red Sox. Over those first three years, he has played in one season’s worth of games, run a wRC+ of 87 (making him 13% worse than the average batter), and posted 3.5 fWAR. According to FanGraphs, 45 different players have provided more value than Story at short over that period. However, Story’s defense has been excellent, so on a per-game basis, he’s been an extremely solid player. It’s perfectly understandable to assume that next season, he’ll be back to full health and he’ll keep on playing well. Still, there are some serious reasons to doubt that assumption, and I’d like to go over them with you.

Why has Story’s bat been so much worse over the past few years? For starters, he strikes out a lot. He’s struck out nearly a third of the time since he moved to Boston. He walked a lot during his very abbreviated 2024 season, but that hasn’t historically been a strength for him either. He’s also likely had some luck propping up his numbers on balls in play. According to DRC+, a stat created by Baseball Prospectus that grades players not just according to their outcomes, but the process that goes into their hitting, Story has been something like 30% worse than the average hitter of the past two seasons. It’s not hard to see why. His contact quality has cratered, a really concerning development for anyone, but especially for a player who has suffered a shoulder injury. In 2021 and 2022, Story’s 90th percentile exit velocity ranked in the 79th and 78th percentiles, respectively. It fell to the 50th in 2023 and all the way to the ninth in 2024. It was a small sample size, but still, that's ugly. Even if Story’s power bounces back some, his bat just doesn’t seem like a smart bet going forward. 

If Story can’t keep up league-average production at the plate, it’s going to put a whole lot of pressure on his glove. The good news is that his glove is great! It’s great right now. The problem is that he’s 32 years old, and his arm grades out as one of the weakest in baseball. He put up a career-low sprint speed in 2024, and this is right around the time that you’d expect a player to slow down. Maybe Story has the quickness and skills to keep playing great defense for a few more years, but that’s probably not the world's safest bet.

Just to recap: there’s good reason to mistrust Story’s bat, and we’re also right around the time that we should expect to his glove to start dropping off. Now, maybe none of this comes to pass. Story has really been through it on the injury front, and he so deeply deserves the chance to show people why the Red Sox went out and got him. It was wonderful to see him return at the end of the season and contribute. If, after a healthy offseason, he’s able to regain some strength and hit the ball harder, he could absolutely have a great year. Still, it’s important to be clear-eyed about the middle infield situation.

The Red Sox were the worst team in baseball at second base in 2024, and at the moment, the team’s plan there appears to consist of hoping that Marcelo Mayer or Kristian Campbell reach out and grab the job. That’s not necessarily a bad plan, but it carries quite a bit of risk. Take a moment to assume the following hypothetical: Neither prospect comes up and shines right away, Story isn't able to contribute much at short, and lastly (as is almost certain at this point) the Red Sox don’t get much production out of the catcher spot either. All of a sudden, the team that spent most of the offseason talking about all the ways it was going to improve is a complete wasteland up the middle, where great teams are supposed to be their strongest.

The Red Sox are at an interesting point in the win curve. While you could be excused for not considering them real contenders during the 2024 season, they weren’t eliminated until the very end of the season. Several lineup spots are already filled by players who range from excellent to solid: Jarren Duran in left field, Ceddanne Rafaela in center, Wilyer Abreu in right, Rafael Devers at third, Triston Casas at first, and Masataka Yoshida at DH. You might not personally believe in every single one of those players, but in nearly every case, it’s hard to argue that the incumbent is unlikely to put up league-average production at the very least next season. Yoshida doesn’t blow you away, but he’s an above average hitter even for a DH. Rafaela doesn’t hit at all, but if he gets regular reps in center field, his defense can more than cover for that. With a roster like this, it’s a bit harder to add significantly because whoever you bring in doesn’t just need to be good, they need to be significantly better than the solid players they’re replacing. That’s one of the reasons Juan Soto’s free agency was so frenzied. There’s simply no such thing as a team that wouldn’t be much, much better with Juan Soto.

Shortstop and second base are two positions where the Red Sox could really stand to get much better, and if their current plan there doesn’t work out. Things might not be pretty.