Boston Red Sox setting Trevor Story up for failure amidst Xander Bogaert departure
Are the Red Sox setting Trevor Story up for failure?
Imagine being Trevor Story this winter.
After signing with the Boston Red Sox last offseason for six years, $140M, a pretty great deal coming off an injury-ridden season, you arrive at spring training to a lukewarm welcome.
You then spend months fielding questions about your throwing arm and replacing Xander Bogaerts, the team’s unofficial captain and longest-tenured big-leaguer. You play well at second base even though you’re a shortstop, but your strikeout rate jumps up 7.4% and you get hit by a pitch that fractures your wrist, so you play the lowest number of games of any 162-game season of your career.
Then, the season ends and your bosses maintain that keeping Bogaerts is their top priority. They publicly say that they hope it doesn’t come down to you being their starting shortstop. You know that if he doesn’t stay, you’ll be compared to him for the rest of your contract, and no matter how well you do, many people will still want him, instead. It won’t matter that you made it clear you were happy to stay at second, and that it’s not your responsibility to turn down a good contract just because a team is famously cheap with its best homegrown stars. You know fans will be angry and heartbroken if all that sweet talk about Bogaerts amounts to nothing. It won’t be your fault that he’s is gone – you campaigned hard for him to stay – but you’ll be inextricably linked to his departure forever.
And then he departs.
In the span of two weeks, each of the top four free-agent shortstops gets at least a 7-year contract and significantly more money than you did the year before. Bogaerts leaves Boston in the dust to claim 11 years, $280M from the San Diego Padres, nearly double your total contract.
Now, the spotlight is on you, and it’s harsher and brighter than it’s ever been. Even though you have elite-level range and were in the 97th percentile for Outs Above Average this year, people look at your arm strength, which was in the eighth percentile, and wonder if you can handle moving back to shortstop at all. Statcast tells the world that you were already throwing below league average at your position (shortstops averaged 84.9 mph) the first year they started tracking the metric in 2020. Your arm strength has dropped from 82.3 mph to 79.1, to 76.1 over the last three seasons; Bogaerts actually threw harder this year than last. Among 26 second basemen who made at least 300 throws this year, you ranked 22nd.
Publicly, the Sox say they’re “optimistic” about your arm. The rumor mill tells another tale: they’re trying to sign or trade for a shortstop. This suggests to the world they’re worried about you being able to hack it, too. Last spring, you were part of their contingency plan for one of the most well-respected players in the game, and now they’re looking for a contingency plan for you. You also know that one of the reasons they kept making insulting offers to Bogaerts is because they’re so high on Marcelo Mayer, the 19-year-old prospect in High-A who will probably arrive in the next 2-3 years. You were a contingency plan for one man, and now you’re the bridge to another.
Imagine being Trevor Story, fighting an uphill battle on all fronts. Strike out less, walk more, throw harder, hit harder, replace a fan-favorite player.
Herein lies the problem. The Sox are setting Story up for failure. Like a more expensive Alex Verdugo, everything he does will be compared to the player he has to replace.
