Red Sox sign Trevor Story to a 6-year, $140 million deal
O.K, let’s do this. How can you possibly rate Trevor Story’s season thus far? It’s been such a wild ride, from games where he looks like he can’t hit a major league fastball to games where he looks like the second coming of Babe Ruth. Just look at these splits:
April 7-May 8: .194/.276/.269 0 HR 10 RBI 105 PA 33.% K rate 8.5% walk rate
May 10- May 26: .293/.368/.776 9 HR 27 RBI 26% K rate 11.7% walk rate
May 27-June 1: .150/.320/.250 0 HR 0 RBI 32% K rate 20% walk rate
There’s a lot of good and a lot of bad to unpack with Story. On one hand, he’s hitting the ball as well as ever, currently posting a career high 14.5% barrel percentage and 22.2 degree launch angle. He’s well above average in both average exit velocity and expected slugging, and is seventh in baseball in RBIs. He’s also a perfect 6-for-6 in stolen bases, and ranks in the 89th percentile in outs above average.
The bad, however, has been really bad. He’s currently fourth in the majors in strikeouts, a result of his inability (.181 BA) to catch up to fastball. He’s also had a number of costly errors in the field, many of the throwing variety. Story has always had strikeout and error issues, but they are becoming a major problem this year.
At the end of the day, it’s a pretty silly experiment to rate Story’s contract at this point. I mean, we’re less than 1/18 of the way through. But of all the big contracts signed last offseason, Story’s numbers are by the far the best, giving him an easy passing grade in this exercise.
Grade: B