The highlights:
A look at various breakdowns shows that Story’s offense is basically… breaking down. He’s chasing far more pitches than ever, swinging and missing more than ever, hitting the ball on the ground more than ever, pulling the ball less than ever (particularly in the air), and absolutely getting eaten alive by four-seam fastballs.
Over his first three seasons in Boston, he began swinging a bit more often (50.4% for 2022–24), but his chase rate took a bigger leap, to 33.4%, and his production receded. This year, he’s swinging at 55.6% of pitches and chasing 37.8%; the latter rate ranks in just the sixth percentile, and the combination of those two rates suggests he’s pressing, expanding his zone and trying to do too much. And of course, he’s missing a whole lot.
In or out of the zone, Story is particularly struggling against four-seamers. He’s whiffing on 22.8% of those fastball while hitting just .164 and slugging .180 against them. His expected numbers against the pitch (.182 xBA, .285 xSLG) don’t make a much stronger case. His Statcast run value on fastballs (-7) is in a virtual tie with Michael Toglia for the majors’ lowest.
Once Story does make contact — at nearly a career-low rate (70.8%) — things aren’t exactly going great. He’s hitting more grounders than fly balls, something he’s never done before; his 48.4% groundball rate is 14 points above his carer mark, while his 1.41 groundball-to-fly-ball ratio is almost double his 0.79 career one. His 31.3% pull rate and 7% pulled air rate are both the lowest of his career; the latter is less than half of last year’s previous career low, 14.8%. Given that Story has hit .466 and slugged 1.717 on pulled air balls during his career, you can see how that might be a problem.