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The Boston Red Sox signed Trevor Story as a free agent ahead of the 2022 MLB season. What is the fantasy baseball impact of this move and what is his outlook?
The Boston Red Sox finally made a splash in the post-lockout free-agent market by signing former Rockies shortstop Trevor Story to a six-year deal worth 140 million dollars.
The Red Sox already have a good young shortstop in Xander Bogaerts but plan to move Story to second base and needed to add another impact bat to keep up with the AL East arms race that has seen Matt Chapman arrive in Toronto and Anthony Rizzo in New York.
The addition of Story has Boston fans buzzing and will surely improve the Red Sox offense, defense, and base running. But what type of year should be we expect from him as he moves from the NL West and the thin air of the Rockies to the AL East?
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Year in Review
Unlike some of the other big free agents on the move this offseason, 2022 was not a career year for Trevor Story. He hit 24 home runs and drove in 75 runs which were fewer than he had in any full season since 2017. His average also dropped to .251 a full 20 points lower than his career average.
Story, a two time All-Star in 2018 and 2019 did strike out the least often of his career with a 23.4% K rate and he did steal 20 bases but his age 28 season was still a bit of a disappointment when compared to the numbers he posted in the first four full seasons of his career in Colorado.
Perhaps his overall numbers were a bit deceiving based on some of his advanced batted ball metrics, however. He barreled up 39 pitches last season which is two more than he did in 2019 but hit 11 fewer homers. His xHR (expected home runs) was 37.4 which is 13 more than he actually hit.
Story was the leader in HR-xHR last season with teammates Charlie Blackmon and C.J. Cron not far behind - proving that Coors Field is not always a boon to HR totals. In fact, only 11 of Story's 24 homers were hit at Coors. Ill circle back to this here a little later.
In summary, his overall numbers clearly dipped in 2021, but there's nothing really major that jumps out in his batted ball profile to suggest that it was anything other than maybe some bad luck (career-low BABIP of .293).
Leaving Coors For Fenway
One of the biggest concerns that many have with projecting former Rockies players when they leave Coors is trying to decipher what impact playing there had on their stats. We only have data from Story as a member of the Rockies as it's the only team he's ever played for, but his home/away splits are significant with last year being a prime example.
Story slashed .296/.365/.515 at home and only .203/.292/.426 on the road in 2021. That's obviously significant but consider that Colorado faced aces aplenty being in the same division with the Dodgers, Giants, and Padres. Also, consider that that all the visiting parks in that division play neutral (Dodgers Stadium and Chase Field) or well below average (Petco Park and Oracle Park) to right-handed hitters. His career splits aren't nearly as severe but his numbers on the road are more "average" than his numbers at home (All-Star caliber).
The good news here is that trading in Coors as his home park for Fenway is only a slight downgrade as Fenway has the fifth-best park factor to RHH. The home runs are the major difference here with the Green Monster turning line-drive homers in other stadiums into singles or doubles.
Camden Yards is likely to drop on this list since they've moved the fences back, but should still be hitter-friendly. Yankee Stadium and Rogers Centre are fairly neutral while Tropicana is an extremely favorable pitchers' park.
Let's take a look at the spray chart from 2021 overlaid on Fenway instead of Coors.
Good gravy the Green Monster is in big trouble. Story is going to be peppering balls off the left-field wall or putting them over it with regularity. What's really interesting to me when you go back to the expected home run totals is that Colorado was quite literally the worst place for Story to be hitting last season for home run production if you take away the altitude effect and simply look at the dimension of the stadiums.
He hit 16 "no-doubters" (gone in any park) and 30 balls that would be "mostly gone" (out of most parks) last season. He would have had 48 xHR in Cincinatti and 38 in Fenway. So the move to Boston strictly from a ballpark perspective could end up being a net positive. The home runs will be there and so should the doubles.
Fantasy Impact
Story looks to be slotting into the five hole behind J.D. Martinez and Xander Bogaerts. The core of Devers, Bogaerts, Martinez and Story is going to be a force to be reckoned with, and let's not forget that Kike Hernandez and Bobby Dalbec hit 25 and 26 homers, respectively, last season, too.
This is a massive lineup upgrade for Story as he should have plenty more RBI opportunities. The division is going to be one of the most competitive in baseball and he will have to face some solid pitching, but I still view the move to the AL East as a good thing for him in terms of getting away from the Dodgers, Giants, and Padres pitching staffs.
At age 29, he's still in his prime at he's poised for a bounceback season I think. His combination of speed and power is a rare commodity and the additional 2B eligibility is only going to increase his fantasy value.
He's the #4 shortstop in our Rotoballer ranks and our experts have him higher than his industry ADP by quite a bit (we all know Nick Mariano is a huge fan!) With second-base eligibility, he'd rank as the #3 second-baseman and I think there are plenty of reasons to be bullish on his potential in Boston this season!
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