The Rise, Evolution and Greatness of Trevor Story.

Certain athletes seem to be destined for greatness since their early teenage years. You know the types: the LeBron James/Bryce Harpers of the world. They exhibit a completely different level of not just skill, but also understanding of their craft than other kids their age. Some, likely the previously mentioned Harper and James, get picked up by the media from an early age and become phenomenons before they even turn 18. Their stardom ends up going well past the niche of their sport and they turn into nation or worldwide mega-stars, their name synonymous with excellence.

But there are some excellent athletes who don’t fall into this category. The ones who likely only have their name recognized by the people who are really aware of what’s going on inside the particular sport they play. The ones who, despite showcasing elite ability over and over again, remain overshadowed by their peers, even their less talented peers, usually thanks to a perfect storm of circumstances. The man this piece is about falls under this category. And he deserves more.

Trevor Story was born in November 15th, 1992, in Irving, Texas. After playing both football and baseball at a young age, he dropped the gridiron as a sophomore in high school in order to focus more on his potential baseball career, which would turn out to be a good decision to say the least.

Story would commit to attend LSU on a baseball scholarship and was ranked as a good prospect entering the 2011 MLB Draft. However, as would be the case for the next decade or so, he was overshadowed as a SS prospect by Francisco Lindor and Javy Báez, who got drafted back to back by the Indians and Cubs, 8th and 9th overall, signing for $2,900,000 and $2,625,000 respectively. Story, on the other hand, went 45th overall to the Rockies and signed for $915,000. Once again, good figures, but not on the level of his peers.

From there on, Story’s Minor League career would be a constant of good hitting despite tons of strikeouts, quality defense … and still getting overlooked in favor of other talented shortstops, many of them future Major League stars like the aforementioned Lindor and Báez and other guys like Carlos Correa (Astros) and Xander Bogaerts (Red Sox). He was a good prospect, but never quite as well liked or as good as the best of the best.

A look at Story’s ranking among the best shortstop prospects in the Minors shows you his reputation:

2012 - 9th (behind all the guys we named earlier)

2013 - Not in Top 10 (leaped over by Corey Seager, current Dodgers SS)

2014 - Not in Top 10 (jumped by Tim Anderson, current White Sox SS)

2015 - Not in Top 10 (jumped by Brendan Rodgers, the Rockies’ 2015 1st round pick)

Most profiles of him as a Minor Leaguer praised his bat speed and power, but worried about the strikeouts, and many though he wouldn’t remain at SS long term. 2015 would be last year Trevor Story qualified for a prospects list.

And it would a key year for him in more ways than one.

In July 2015, the Rockies were bad. And that’s putting it mildly. They entered the month 34–44, again dead last in the NL West, just like they had been every year since 2012. The team was bad, but the farm system had a lot of really interesting pieces, and some former prospects were starting to establish themselves in the show, such as Story’s future partner in the left side of the infield, a guy named Nolan Arenado. You may have heard of him somewhere.

The problem with the Rockies is that, well, they sucked, but they also had a certain oft-injured superstar on their roster, wasting his last good years on a terrible team. That man’s name was Troy Tulowitzki, baseball’s version of Tracy McGrady; a supremely talented player who could never enjoy a full career thanks to injuries. A player of his caliber on a team as bad as the Rockies were was nothing more than a luxury good, and despite it taking a long time to convince the owner of the team, on July 28th, 2015, the move was made. The Rockies traded their best player to the Blue Jays for a package consisting of three good pitching prospects and veteran shortstop José Reyes.

The move opened up a possibility for Trevor Story. Reyes was a veteran who was clearly past his prime, Brendan Rodgers, the team’s future shortstop, wasn’t anywhere near ready for Major League playing time yet, and Story, who had performed well at the highest levels of the Minors, was the obvious plug-in replacement for Tulo. The Rockies, however, being infamous for favoring veterans over young prospects with potential, could’ve threatened to derail Story’s chances of getting consistent reps. That was, of course, until Reyes was charged with domestic abuse during the 2015–16 offseason, effectively getting himself out of Colorado before playing a single game in 2016.

With the possible hurdle of the Rockies having Reyes take at-bats from him out of the way, Story became the de-facto heir to Tulowitzki’s throne. He mashed during 2016 Spring Training and made the Opening Day Roster, making his MLB debut on April 4th, 2016 at Chase Field, Arizona, starting at shortstop against the Arizona Diamondbacks and batting 2nd. And facing a Zack Greinke coming off finishing 2nd in Cy Young voting the previous year, too, not just any ol’ pitcher. Few could’ve predicted when the ballgame started at 6:42 pm local time that there was history about to be made.

In his first at-bat in the top of the 1st inning, 23-year-old TrevorStory took ball 1, then swung at the next pitch… grounding out to the third baseman, making an out in his first MLB plate appearance. 0–1 so far.

The next time he came to bat, the game was tied 1–1, and the Rockies had runners on 2nd and 3rd base with nobody out. A bit of a pressure situation for a rookie in his 2nd Major League at-bat; leaving runners in scoring position with nobody out is not a good look.

And Trevor Story did this:

Yup. A HR to the opposite field off Zack Greinke in his 2nd MLB at-bat. Not a bad way to get your 1st MLB hit. But anyone can run into a homer, right?

Well, in his very next at-bat (still facing Zack Greinke), this happened:

That’s a two home run debut in the books. Story would then follow this up by hitting 5 more home runs in his next 5 games, becoming the first player to ever hit 7 home runs in a team’s first 6 games of a season. He would maintain an OPS above .900 all the way until May 28th and never drop below the .854 mark on the season. Not bad for a rookie shortstop who wasn’t considered a legitimate top tier, game changing prospect.

Pretty much the only real bad thing about Story’s 2016 debut was how it ended. He tore a ligament in his thumb and was forced to have surgery, playing his final game in July 30th. His stat line by that point?

.272/.341/.567 (122 wRC+), 27 home runs and 3.1 fWAR (including 1.9 BsR) in 97 games.

In case any of you aren’t aware, that’s close to elite all around production. He finished 4th in NL Rookie of the Year voting despite only playing in 97 games.

If there was something to be worried about, it was the strikeouts. They had been common in the Minors and were even more so in his debut season. Story struck out in 31.3% of his plate appearances, 5th highest % in baseball (min. 400 PAs), but the K’s seemed to be a pretty minor deal next to his tremendous power, solid defense at shortstop, and good baserunning. Everything seemed to be going perfectly; Trevor Story was the rightful successor to Troy Tulowitzki and one of the brightest young players on a Rockies team that was on the rise.

And then 2017 happened.

You know how Batman was a hero in Batman Begins and then lived long enough to become a villain in The Dark Knight? That’s sort of what happened to Trevor Story in 2017. There’s sophomore slumps, and then there’s this.

He entered the year as the team’s undisputed starting shortstop, and remained in that role despite struggling mightily at the plate.

And I think “struggling mightily” sells him short here.

Through 3 games that year, his OPS was .962. Right after that, he went on a 4–42 stretch, and he would never get over the .800 OPS mark again. He did hit 24 HRs, but he made less contact, worse contact, and the strikeout issues became insane. Story struck out in 34.4% of PAs, good (or bad, really) for 3rd highest in baseball among qualified hitters. After excelling against breaking pitches in 2016, he became almost totally unable to hit them in 2017, whiffing on 41.5% of his swings against them. He also sucked against changeups, whiffing 47.2% (!) of the time when swinging at one.

Despite his struggles at the plate, he remained a good defender and baserunner, but the lack of offensive presence was blatant. He finished the year slashing .239/.308/.457 with a miserable 82 wRC+. After accumulating 3.1 fWAR in 97 games as a rookie, he regressed to 1.4 fWAR in 145 games in his sophomore year. He did finish the year on a good note, however, going 2–4 with a home run included in the Rockies’ loss in the Wild Card Game to the same D-Backs he’d torched in his debut, over a year and a half ago.

And if there’s one thing you have to know about Trevor Story, it’s that whatever he sets out to accomplish during the offseason, he does it. The number 1 thing on his to-do list for 2018 was cutting down on the strikeouts. Would he be able to do it?

Yup.

2018 was sort of the second coming out party for Trevor Story. It didn’t start out well, as the Texas native struck out 7 times in his first 9 plate appearances of the year. Despite a slow start, however, he quickly jumped well over the .800 OPS mark by late April with a new, more aggressive approach at the plate, and stayed consistently either right at or above .800. June 1st was the last time his OPS would drop below .800 on the year, as Story caught fire in mid-late June. And the Rockies started winning. They went 12–3 in their final 15 games before the All-Star break, punctuated by a 4–3 walk-off win against the Mariners, courtesy of game winning homer by, you guessed it, Trevor Story, who:

Story went to his first All Star Game in 2018, and he delivered over and over again after the All-Star break, being the Rockies’ best hitter the rest of the way in route to a 37–25 record and pushing the Dodgers to a Game 163… only to get unceremoniously dispatched by them 5–2. The Rockies were still without a division title, but they couldn’t feel sorry for themselves; they had a Wild Card Game to play the very next day at Wrigley Field.

(As a Rockies fan, this part is both joyful and sad.)

Just as he had been throughout the 2nd half of the season, Story was the best Rockies hitter in Chicago, going 3-for-6 and scoring the winning run in the 13th inning as the Rockies outlasted the Cubs in a marathon duel of terrible and inconsistent offenses mixed with good pitching stas.

But the postseason success, both for Story and the Rockies, wouldn’t last long. The bad offensive performance from the team that had been dragging them down all year long caught up to them in an embarrassing 3–0 sweep at the hands of the Brewers in the NLDS. Story in particular struggled mightily, going 2–for-12 with 6 strikeouts and looking really bad at the plate most of the time. That series really sticks in my memory, mainly because it’s looking like the last time the Rockies will make the postseason in a long time. But I digress!

Despite the bad exit from the postseason, you couldn’t deny that Story had emerged as the superstar he looked like in his rookie year. He finished the year slashing a fantastic .291/.348/.567 for a career high 128 wRC+, his strikeout rate dipped from 34.4% to 25.6% and while his defense wasn’t very sharp, he was still a plus on the basepaths, stealing 27 bases (and only caught 6 times) to go along with his 37 homers, 42 doubles and 6 triples. Story led the NL in extra-base hits, finished 8th in NL MVP voting and put up an excellent 5.1 fWAR in 155 games.

His 2018 season also included what to this day is my favorite Trevor Story game, his 3 home run game on September 5th. His 3 home runs were in back-to-back-to-back plate appearances, by the way, and combined for 1,380 feet, including a monstrous 505 foot shot.

So after establishing himself as a premier slugger at a premium position, what else is there to do? Well, remember how I said his defense wasn’t as sharp as it could’ve been? And remember how I said that when Trevor Story works on something in the offseason, he improves dramatically the following year? It happened again in 2019.

2019 Trevor Story the hitter was very similar to 2018 Story. He toned down the aggressiveness a bit as pitchers started to challenge him less and less. The walk rate improved, the K% was similar to his 2018 numbers. The main difference, as I talked about, was his defense.

Story’s defense wasn’t awful in 2018, but it wasn’t good either. In 2019, though, it jumped all the way to elite. His range improved dramatically, particularly on coming in on weakly hit groundballs, and he improved on his big weakness, going to his right, as you can see down below and on Baseball Savant.

The improved defense and jump in baserunning value (5.9 BsR in 145 games, 10th best in baseball), combined with another great year at the plate (.294/.363/.554, 122 wRC+, 35 HR, 23 SB), catapulted Story into MVPish numbers: 5.8 fWAR in 145 games, a career high, as he finished 12th in MVP voting and 3rd in Gold Glove voting. Oh, and if you noticed, I didn’t talk about the team’s performance that much. Why?

Well, because the 2019 Rockies, with a roster that lacked depth, stayed afloat into June, only to collapse from July onwards and finish with an abysmal 71–91 record. We’ll get into why team success matters when looking at the whole picture with Trevor Story’s status among non die-hard baseball fans in a minute. First, onto 2020.

Trevor entered 2020 with two objectives: 1) being a better base stealer and 2) being more patient and disciplined at the plate. Has he accomplished both?

You know he has. At the time of writing this (Sept. 23rd), he ranks 2nd in MLB with 14 stolen bases, and he’s only been caught 2 times. His walk rate has climbed over 10% for the first time in his career. The K% is a career low. He’s playing his typical excellent defense. He’s slashing .295/.368/.538 for a 125 wRC+. He has 2.3 fWAR in 53 games.

Yet, the Rockies have been terrible. After starting off 11–3, mainly due to overperforming and a soft schedule, they’ve gone 13–27 since. The bullpen has been horrid, which is out of Story’s control. No one outside of him has hit well, including Nolan Arenado, who’s been hurt, struggling and had his season ended early. Charlie Blackmon was hitting .500 at one point and has been terrible since. Story has been completely alone on the Rockies, an elite player on a terrible team, much like Tulo was from 2012–15. A chest filled with treasure on a sinking ship. A beacon of light in the middle of constant darkness. And it’s not enough.

Trevor Story has improved every single year starting in 2018. He’s been an elite player since 2018. He wanted to strike out less, he did it. He wanted to play better defense, he did it. He wanted to be a better base stealer and be more patient at the plate, he’s done it. Everything he could’ve improved upon, he’s done so with success. Is he a perfect player? Of course not, he still doesn’t walk enough for that. But I’ve witnessed his transformation into an MVP caliber player, a franchise cornerstone. He’s currently the best shortstop in baseball in my humble opinion. But why the lack of coverage? I can tell you why.

There’s a reason for the lack of nation and world wide recognition Trevor Story gets. The pedigree a player has as a prospect is one factor. Lindor, Correa, Seager, Báez, all these guys have been hailed as elite players since they were 18. Not the case for Story. Also, remember how I talked about team success and how much that matters? Let’s see who Story’s fellow shortstops are, who they play for, and how much coverage they’ve gotten since 2016.

• Francisco Lindor: plays for the Cleveland Indians. Not a big market, but a historic organization, and made the postseason from 2016–18, including a World Series run in ’16 and a memorable series against the Yankees in ’17. He’s also got the personality of a media darling, which helps him.
• Javy Báez: plays for the Chicago Cubs, a very relevant team with tons of fans. Has been featured in postseasons, including that ’16 World Series on the other side of Lindor. Plays with flare and is charismatic. Makes sense he gets more coverage.
• Corey Seager: plays for the L.A. Dodgers, so nothing else to say here. Two WS appearances, huge market. He’s obviously gonna get more coverage.
• Carlos Correa: plays for the Astros, another huge market, another two WS appearances. Are you seeing a trend here?
• Tim Anderson: plays for the White Sox, who are more relevant now than the Rockies have ever been, and has made himself famous by playing with attitude, bat flipping, and pissing traditionalists off (which I endorse). Again, makes sense.
• Fernando Tatís Jr.: is everything Tim Anderson is and then some. Plays with even more swagger, is probably the face of MLB right now. Makes sense once again.

You see what I’m talking about? And I didn’t even mention someone like Gleyber Torres and some others like that. Look at Story compared to them; he plays for the Rockies, a forever irrelevant franchise whose hitters get dismissed because “Coors” and rarely makes the postseason. He’s played in 5 postseason games and hasn’t played for a team who’s won a single game in the NLDS.

You can even see his position as the “forgotten elite shortstop” when it comes to the 2021 free agent class. Lindor, Báez, Correa, Seager, they’ll all be unrestricted FAs at that point. Who’s everyone talking about? Lindor, who’s elite as well, but not the hitter or baserunner Story is. Is Báez as good as him? Not even close. Correa and Seager? Maybe on a per rate basis, but they’re both made of glass. Tatís hasn’t done enough quite yet, and same goes for Tim Anderson.

I get it. It’s easy to forget about Trevor Story. But do yourself a favor. If you like baseball. If you appreciate watching elite players play baseball, don’t allow him to become a secondary character. For me? I’ll just enjoy witnessing his greatness day in and day out for as long as I can, because he might not be a Rockie anymore after 2021. And while it would break my heart to see him go, if he goes to a contender, wins in the postseason, and becomes a bigger name off of that, I’ll be cheering him along all the way to his potential retirement home in Cooperstown.

Written by Mario Delgado Genzor. @mariodegenz@gmail.com