While I would have preferred to critique and analyze (hey-oh) Trevor Story‘s thus far lackadaisical season when healthy, his recent leg injury (which to be fair, has him listed just day-to-day as of this writing) does kinda take the wind out of the proverbial content sails. Wow, a nautical proverb, who would have thought? And while it might be a slightly awkward time to take a look at the player who might not get starts in the meantime, I’m willing to take that hit for the good of not wanting to change my subject and start this whole post over. So while Story is considered to be available in the upcoming series against the Dodgers, let’s focus on how he hasn’t been available to us for most of the year…
Getting right to the point, this season has been infuriatingly lackluster from a player who looked to be the perfect fantasy middle-infield producer the past three years. Batting average? In the .290’s. Power? 35+ homerun power. Plate discipline? He didn’t lack it with mid-.350 OBP, and of course the cherry on top, stolen bases providing around 25 per. Granted, this is a pretty loose statistical recap, but let’s just say the dude mashed.
But then something happened, and looking back at the same years I just went over, it becomes increasingly clearer that Story was really good until suddenly he became not so good. And if you think I’m coy about describing Story as a player, you could be right. A 250/330/450 with 20+ home runs isn’t terrible for a shortstop, in fact, that’s a lot of value, so let’s just agree that while he hasn’t terrible in 2021, what we got was certainly not what we were expecting and it has probably taken its toll on your team and heartburn.
Obviously, 2020 comes with its own set of caveats, and while data is still data, this is much to say that nothing really happened last year that would potentially heed a warning for what was to come. And in a lot of ways, that’s a good thing. My uninformed hypothesis coming into this was that this is just an off-year for Story, perhaps just simply bad luck, bad timing, bad… well I sorta ran out stuff that could be bad in this context and if I went any further it would just end up being a terrible homage to Michael Jackson. But that being said, on the surface, I might be on to something… just at a glance, Story’s BB% and K% remain stable, but his BABIP is currently at a career-low, .291. To put that into context, in the last three seasons he’s been able to net .354, .361, and .345 going backwards. So let’s get deeper into the numbers. Just the way your mother likes it.
So here’s what I noticed right off the bat. First, let me just say I find it a bit odd that his IFH% (infield hit percentage) went from a career 10.3% and 13.7% clip in 2020 down to a measly 5.9% this year. And I’m definitely not saying his year is suffering because of a lack of infield hits, but his profile has a couple of goofy things like that going on, and in a way, if you add up all these examples… but I digress for a moment.
Let’s look (or read) at the general batted ball data. As you’d expect, his GB/FB has gone in the wrong direction, he’s hitting way more groundballs than ever before (38.3% clip as opposed to 29.7% last year), yet his directional splits and how hard he’s hitting the ball has not shifted largely from his career numbers. Concerning though is the fact that he’s swinging more, and not just swinging more, but missing more in the strike zone and out. His zone and contact percentages are pretty stable, so one has to wonder if he’s pressing. And if he is pressing, how is it that he hasn’t actually escaped from out of this funk? We may like the funk, but not this type of funk.
Could it be a bit more personal too? I’m not one to mix real life with statistics in baseball, it’s a bit easier, especially from where I’m sitting, so just look at the player sheet and make sweeping determinations, but I’d be remiss to point out that Story has had a season with butting heads with the front office and the Rockies overall tumult and was he himself surprised when he did not move at the trade deadline.
And that is to say, Trevor Story is struggling, but maybe he should be this season. The stats tell me that he’s pressing, he’s getting unlucky, and while it’s easy to say that in a contract year, he’s certainly selling himself short, it’s harder to say when he will be back to his old self. Granted, he may never be, but if you look at his overall profile, and the fact that his Slugging and ISO were on the rise in the second half before this recent foot injury, I think there’s a chance here for Story to be that he was.
Of course, it might be too late this season, and that consolation doesn’t do much for many. However, as the season begins to wind down, do try and keep this Story in mind, it might actually have a happy ending…
Jay is a longtime Razzball everything who consumes an egregious amount of Makers Mark as a vehicle to gain wisdom and augment his natural glow. Living in the D.C. area, he also likes spending time visiting the local parks and feeding lettuce to any turtles he encounters, including Mitch McConnell. You can follow him on Twitter @jaywrong.
