Trevor Story has signed with the Boston Red Sox
- Thread starter mikeford
- Start date
Not from the Athletic but from Joon Lee ESPN October 25, 2021:
"According to sources close to Bogaerts, the shortstop currently plans on opting out of the contract after 2022, but hopes to remain in Boston and finish his career with the Red Sox. The three-time All-Star shortstop is also open to moving to second or third base down the road."
Glad to hear he is open to moving positions, however he might want to touch base with Freeman and Correa prior to making his opt out official. I think they both expected their respective teams to be more aggressive in bringing them back. In fact, Correa might be on the market as well which could become competition for X
Terrific signing. No buts about it. It is faulty logic to look at how we arrived at this particular signing at this particular moment in time in this particular market, and conclude that it was simply the unpredictable result of unpredictably fortunate circumstances. If the top free agent shortstops hadn't ended up where they did when the did--if, in other words, the signings of shortstops this offseason hadn't tilted the odds in favor of the Sox having a chair when the music stopped--then there is every reason to believe that Bloom would have adjusted his course of action and made a move sooner, or perhaps made a different move entirely. Perhaps it wouldn't have been a shortstop he signed at all. Perhaps if other clubs had signed other players--for instance Story--then Bloom would have changed strategies and instead prioritized acquiring a premium outfield bat and stuck with our existing middle infield options. All good executives have multiple plans and then multiple backups to those plans. As the available options change, so does the course of action. In late March of 2022, the off-season played out in a way that resulted in Trevor Story being available to the Red Sox. My guess is that if the off-season had played out in a different way, then there was a plan in place for the Red Sox to acquire another quality player.
I'm sure there were multiple players the Sox had zeroed in on, and I agree that Story most likely was one of them.
FWIW, a Fangraph's article about the signing noted that the whole "Should Xander move off 2nd for Trevor" issue may not be as big of a deal as it seems---they noted that they had their in-house forecaster determine how much better the Sox would be if Story was at SS and Bogaerts was at 2nd and the answer is....3 runs better over the course of a season. YMMV on these sort of analyses but it was interesting to me to see that the difference wasn't....nearly as big as I thought.
If I am reading the article right, the three-run difference is comparing Xander at SS and Story at 2B, with Xander at 2B and Story at SS. You have one good fielder and one not-so-good fielder either way. Putting the good fielder at SS is better, but not only marginally better. Presumably an infield of two Story's, or Story and another good fielder, would be better by a lot more than three defensive runs.
Yes, and obviously this is sort of assuming that whoever is playing 2nd is in effect getting a one-grade bump up in their fielding ability. So the difference between a good SS (Story) and an average 2B (Bogaerts) is, over the course of a season, 3 runs better than a bad SS (Bogaerts) and excellent 2B (Story). I'm sure it also depends on which fielding metrics you are using. I'm assuming that the Fangraphs analysis that yielded a 3 run difference probably is using UZR, which is the most complimentary of Xander's fielding compared to, say DRS. So that's the obvious caveat. If we went by DRS instead, I'm sure the gap is larger, because DRS is more down on Xander's defense and is also more bullish on Trevor's (as the Fangraphs article itself notes, but this is subject to its own bias as well). So maybe we can say in the best case scenario, the difference between the two configurations in terms of overall impact on defense isn't much---though probably more than 3 runs. Still may not be worth pissing Xander off over.
And again, Xander may be more amenable to a switch in the future once he has a new contract. If we're looking for precedent for a SS to be willing to move to 2B after signing a long-term contract....well, we happen to have one handy.
Has anyone seen a tentative timeline for Story's arrival, first game, etc.....will he be ready to start the season after missing the first two weeks of a shortened spring training??
They've yet to announce his signing officially, so it's hard to forecast a timeline. As long as he's in camp by sometime mid-week, I can't imagine starting the season will be an issue for him. Presumably he's been working out and hitting on his own, so it will just be a matter of getting a few live games to get his eye in at the plate. If he's not 100% good to go on Opening Day, he'll probably be at about 95%.
I'm boggled how that site can evaluate how well Bogaerts would play 2B - since he's never played 2B. Sometimes metrics piss me off.
We have like a century of data on how guys perform moving down on the defensive spectrum one spot, in particular from SS to 2B. Sure, there's some educated guesswork and dots that need to be connected, but the projections probably aren't terrible.
This gives me Pedroia vibes
Reading a story about Story from the end of last season View: https://twitter.com/redsoxstats/status/1506461801055236100
Reading a story about Story from the end of last season View: https://twitter.com/redsoxstats/status/1506461801055236100
Speier has Story's contract details. Backloaded a bit, so that opt-out after year 4 is likely to be a tougher decision for a 32 year old Story (opting out of 2/55 if I'm understanding correctly).
View: https://twitter.com/alexspeier/status/1506591415878488068
View: https://twitter.com/alexspeier/status/1506591415878488068
Similar structure to the Sale contract — 4/85 contract with a $55M insurance policy that’s convertible at the Sox’ option into a 3/75 extension. You’d expect Story to opt out if the first four years go reasonably well and the Sox don’t pick up the option — he probably won’t get $25M+ AAV on a contract that begins in his age 33 season, but he should get north of $55M guaranteed unless things go badly for him between now and then.
I had the same thought. You tell me which one is the jock and which one is the analytics dweeb.
As mentioned up thread, Story's throwing velocity dipped the last two years. In this article from last July, Rosenthal states: "The average velocity on the top 10 percent of Story’s throws is 78.1 mph, down from 80.4 last season and an average of 85.4 the four previous years." It looks like he pulled this info from Statcast but I can't find the throwing velocity stats.
Does anyone see if Story's throwing velocity picked up later in the season? His two best offensive months were August and September and I'm curious if his defense improved as well.
Here's the article: https://theathletic.com/2732480/2021/07/27/rosenthal-trevor-story-max-scherzer-mlb-trade-deadline/
Does anyone see if Story's throwing velocity picked up later in the season? His two best offensive months were August and September and I'm curious if his defense improved as well.
Here's the article: https://theathletic.com/2732480/2021/07/27/rosenthal-trevor-story-max-scherzer-mlb-trade-deadline/
Don't let the thumbnail scare you away. It is worth a watch.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IgPpHOf6kQ
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IgPpHOf6kQ
Hunter Renfroe isn't walking through that door
David Price isn't walking through that door
And if they walked through that door they'd be wearing the uniforms of other teams now
10 will always be Geddy to me
The more I see and read of Middlebrooks, the more I wish he'd been able to put it together and stick with the Sox. Since he didn't, now I want to see him take a role with NESN as Remy's long term replacement. That's a hell of an anti-sell job on NYC.
Interesting on how they are going to change their shift with Devers moving across the diamond and Xander staying on the left side
I gather this calculation is made simply by putting their zones next to each other and projecting outcomes. Does that build in the possibility that having a rangier Story next to Bogaerts allows the Sox to move them a bit toward third (vs RHH) to make Bogaerts more effective?? I guess what I am asking is whether the reality is as simple as two separate calculations or whether there is some way in which one player's rating causes a change in his partner's rating?
Today was an example. Devers made a nice play when he had to dive to catch and then tagging out Buxton trying to steal second.
The Tweet says he agreed to get the shot. I'm as anti-anti-vax as the next guy but how about we don't shit on the guy who was willing to be convinced to do the right thing for the team and society? I say kudos to Trevor Story.
Could have obviously been an issue with him playing in Toronto.
I wonder if AL East teams (or other teams) made it a requirement to get vaxxed for FA’s they signed.
Rizzo was unvaxxed last year and when asked about it this year after the Yankees signed him he said it “won’t be an issue” anymore. So I assume he now is vaxxed but am curious if it was a condition of being signed.
I don't have ESPN+ so I haven't read the details, but I'm impressed if the Sox drew that line in the sand and were actually willing to walk away from the whole deal if Story wouldn't get vaccinated. The Toronto games are ending up being powerful motivation, it seems. Plawecki apparently also got vaccinated despite not wanting to for the sake of those games.
View: https://twitter.com/alexspeier/status/1522659042862247942
If your wondering what brought about this question
View: https://twitter.com/Dan_Shaughnessy/status/1522560055933087745
If your wondering what brought about this question
View: https://twitter.com/Dan_Shaughnessy/status/1522560055933087745
Thanks for the context soxhop.
Of course Shaughnessy was at the center of this tempest in a teapot. The guy has been here for a month and his wife just had their first child. He deserves the benefit of the doubt here.
Of course Shaughnessy was at the center of this tempest in a teapot. The guy has been here for a month and his wife just had their first child. He deserves the benefit of the doubt here.
The players don’t need to worry about the fans so much, but they have no right to avoid us media darlings. GTFO.