Trevor Story

Trevor John Story

Bats Right, Throws Right
Height 6' 1", Weight 180 lb.
High School Irving High School
Debut April 4, 2016

Born November 15, 1992 in Irving, TX USA

Biographical Information[edit]

Shortstop Trevor Story was a supplemental first-round draft choice in the 2011 amateur draft. He had hit .488 as a high school senior and had a commitment to Louisiana State University when the Colorado Rockies took him 45th overall in the draft. The pick was Colorado's second, following Tyler Anderson, and was compensation for the loss of Octavio Dotel. He was soon signed by scout Dar Cox for a bonus of $915,000 and made his pro debut with the Casper Ghosts on July 10th. Hitting sixth, he went 1 for 3 with a walk and a run in a loss to the Ogden Raptors.

Story arrived in spring training with the Rockies in 2016 as a relative unknown. However, given the absence of veteran SS Jose Reyes, unable to practice with the team because of an ongoing investigation into allegations of domestic abuse, he received a lot of playing time, and made the most of it, claiming the starting job. he hit .354 with 6 homers in the Cactus League, immediately drawing comparisons to another slugging shortstop who had played with the Rockies, Troy Tulowitzki. He had a historic big league debut on April 4th against the Arizona Diamondbacks, as he became the first player ever to homer twice in an opening day debut, leading the Rockies to a 10-5 win. Only four other players, none in the National League, had ever homered twice in their first major league game before him. Both long balls came off Zack Greinke, in the 3rd and 4th innings, after he had grounded out to third in his first at-bat in the 1st, as he went 2 for 6 with 4 RBIs on the night. He also homered the next day to give him three long balls in his first two games. Not content with that, he again homered the next day to become the first player in history to homer in his first three big league games. He then added to his legend in Colorado's home opener on April 8th as he hit two more long balls against the San Diego Padres to give him six homers in his first four games. He also collected his first hit that was not a homer, a run-scoring single in the 2nd, to give him 11 RBIs in 4 games. On April 13th, he showed that he could do more than hit long balls when he had two triples in a 10-6 win over the San Francisco Giants as the Rockies set a club record with four three-base hits in the game. On April 27th, he broke out of a 2-for-23 slump with his 9th homer of the month against Jonathon Niese of the Pittsburgh Pirates. The blast set a new National League rookie record for homers in April, breaking the mark of 8 set by Albert Pujols in 2001. Two days later, he tied the major league mark held by Jose Abreu with a two-run shot off Robbie Ray of the D-Backs in a 9-0 win. He also tied a major league record held by George Scott by needing only 21 games to hit his first ten homers, but that record was obliterated the following year when Rhys Hoskins hit his first ten long balls in only 17 games. He was named the NL's Rookie of the Month for April. When Reyes was available to return to the field on June 15th, the Rockies did not hesitate, however, as they designated the veteran for assignment the same day, eating approximately $40 million in salary. Story was hitting .265 with 17 homers and 45 RBIs at the time and the Rockies had no intention of having Reyes around to create a distraction.

In spite of his strong start, Trevor was not selected for the 2016 All-Star Game, although he was one of the unsuccessful candidates for the Final Man Vote. On July 30th, he jammed his thumb when sliding into second base in a game against the New York Mets. An MRI exam performed a couple of days later revealed a torn ligament, putting him on the disabled list and ending his season. In 97 games, he had hit 27 homers, which led the NL at the time and was also a league record for a rookie shortstop. He was hitting .272 and had slugged 21 doubles as well, scoring 67 runs while driving in 72.

He hit his first career grand slam on April 21, 2017 off Johnny Cueto of the San Francisco Giants in a 6-5 win at Coors Field. Teammate Charlie Blackmon hit an inside-the-park homer in that same 4th inning, making it the first time since 1950 that a National League team had done so. After 33 games, however, he was hitting only .180 with 6 homers and 15 RBIs, while leading the NL with 48 strikeouts. On May 11th, he was placed on the disabled list with a strained left shoulder. In spite of the injury, he still played 145 games, but his statistics were down, with a .239 average, 24 homers and 82 RBIs. e also led the National League with 191 strikeouts. The Rockies did make it to the postseason, though, and he was very good in the Wild Card Game which Colorado lost to the Arizona Diamondbacks, 11-8, on October 4th. He went 2-for-4 with a homer and also scored twice.

In 2018, his production bounced back and he was named to the All-Star team for the first time. On September 5th, he had the first three-homer game of his career in a 5-3 win over the San Francisco Giants. All three long balls came off Andrew Suarez, and the second of these, in the 4th inning, traveled an estimated 505 feet; that was the longest distance calculated since the introduction of Statcast in 2015. But just as the Rockies were making a final push for the postseason in late September, he had to miss a week of action because of inflammation in his elbow, only coming back on September 24th, with the race against the Los Angeles Dodgers about to go down to the wire. In his first game back, he hit a pair of doubles to become just the fourth shortstop in National League history to have 80 extra-base hits in a season, with Ernie Banks having achieved the feat three times. He finished the year at .291 in 157 games with 37 homers and 108 RBIs. He then went 3 for 6 with a doubkle as the Rockies defeated the Chicago Cubs in the Wild Card Game but was largely shut down by the pitching of the Milwaukee Brewers as Colorado was swept in the Division Series, with just a single and a double in 12 at-bats, with nor runs or RBI.

On May 24, 2019, he hit the 100th and 101st homers of his career in the same game against the Baltimore Orioles. His two-run shot in the 7th inning off Shawn Armstrong made him the fastest shortstop to the century mark, having needed 448 games, beating out Alex Rodriguez and his 470 games. He then ended the game with a walk-off shot against Mychal Givens that gave Colorado an 8-6 win. On May 31st, he hit another 2 homers and drove in a career-high 7 runs in a 14-6 win over the Toronto Blue Jays. He ended the year at .294 with 35 homers and 85 RBIs and was named to the All-Star team for the second straight year, in addition to winning a second Silver Slugger Award. He also finished 12th in the MVP vote, but the Rockies were unable to return to the postseason. It was another tough season for the team in 2020, but Trevor continued to be among their most productive players. The season was shortened to 60 games by the Coronavirus pandemic, so there were no eye-popping numbers to be posted, but he still put up an OPS+ of 120 for the second straight year, led the National League with 4 triples and 15 stolen bases, and batted .289 with 11 homers and 28 RBIs. He once again received consideration in the MVP vote, this time finishing 11th, his third straight top-12 finish.

Trevor played one final season with Colorado in 2021. No one expected much from the team after it had traded away discontented third baseman and team leader Nolan Arenado over the off-season, as he was unhappy that the front office had failed to build on the promise shown by the two consecutive postseason appearances of 2017 and 2018. That year, Story was one of a number of prominent shortstops who were slated to become free agents after the season, a class that also included Corey Seager, Carlos Correa and Marcus Semien, for example. Unfortunately for him, he had a season below his usual standards, batting .151 with 24 homers and 75 RBIs. His OPS+ of 103 was still good for a middle infielder, but he was up against stiff competition. Many - including himself - had expected to see him traded at the deadline, but he stayed put. After the season there was speculation about a couple of teams being interested in his services after the season - the Rockies apparently weren't one of them - but when the lockout began on December 1st, he was still unsigned.

It took him until March 20, 2022 to find a team, and it was a bit of a surprise as it was the Boston Red Sox, who already had a top-notch shortstop in Xander Bogaerts, although he was entering the final year of his contract. In any case, Boston offered Story a six-year deal worth $140 million, leaving it up to manager Alex Cora to decide how best to use his players. The decision was to move Story to second base, with Bogaerts staying at shortstop, and Kiké Hernandez playing the outfield full-time. Trevor got off to a slow start, as he did not hit his first homer for his new team until May 11th, by which time the Red Sox had fallen to last place in the AL East and he was the frequent target of criticism from unsatisfied members of Red Sox nation. On May 19th, he showed some of his old self when he hit three homers with 7 RBIs and a stolen base in front of hometown fans in a 12-6 win over the Seattle Mariners. This marked the start of a week when he hit .360 with 6 homers and 14 RBIs to be named the American League Player of the Week. Before that week, his RBI total was 15. With a homer and 4 RBIs in a 16-7 win over the Chicago White Sox on May 26th, he made it 8 homers and an insane 21 RBIs in his last 7 games; he had collected 4 or more RBIs in four of these games. No Red Sox player had ever collected that many RBIs in a seven-game span. He also had 32 RBIs in May. He finished the season at .238 in 94 games, as separate injuries to his right hand and to his left heel cut into his playing time. He hit 16 homers with 66 RBIs and his OPS+ was 102 - exactly the same as in 2021 with the Rockies.

Bogaerts left as a free agent after the 2022 season, but it wasn't a given that Story would go back to his old position, as there was some concern about his arm strength. The situation became even murkier when he experienced elbow pain when ramping up his conditioning program in December, which led to his undergoing surgery in January of 2023. The surgery involved placing a brace to strengthen the ulnar collateral ligament in his elbow, and not its actual replacement as in Tommy John surgery, but the expected recovery time was likely to be similar, making it unlikely that he would be able to play at all during the upcoming season. The surgery left Boston with two gaping holes in its line-up, at shortstop and second base, without obvious candidates to fill them.

Source: Dallas Morning News high school sports blog

Notable Achievements[edit]

2-time NL All-Star (2018 & 2019)
2-time NL Silver Slugger Award Winner (2018 & 2019)
NL Triples Leader (2020)
NL Stolen Bases Leader (2020)
20-Home Run Seasons: 5 (2016-2019 & 2021)
30-Home Run Seasons: 2 (2018 & 2019)
100 RBI Seasons: 1 (2018)
100 Runs Scored Seasons: 1 (2019)

Related Sites[edit]

Search

Namespaces

Views

Trevor Story

Contents

Biographical Information[edit]

Notable Achievements[edit]

Further Reading[edit]

Related Sites[edit]

Full Site Menu

FAQs, Tip & Tricks