First excited reaction as a Red Sox fan is that he could be a Nomar-type player in Fenway, with the sort of speed/power combination that leads to a lot of triples.

Wow. Caught me completely by surprise.
He's probably a better fielder than X who is . . okay. There are a lot of options for what to do. Move X to 3rd and Devers to first, DH Dalbec. Or do you DH Devers who's been the weak link fielding. I say again, Wow.

It looks like they're going to slot him into second, put Hernandez in center full-time, and expect Arroyo to get hurt a lot for 2022. After that, well, Xander's got an opt-out after this year, and I must imagine that the extension talks with Bogaerts and Devers are looking a little more tense.

First excited reaction as a Red Sox fan is that he could be a Nomar-type player in Fenway, with the sort of speed/power combination that leads to a lot of triples.

Or he could have a .310 OBP (his road figure for his career in Coors), and become an offensive millstone.

Sure, but aren't those Coors road stats generally not predictive - that once a player is no longer spending half their time practicing on the moon, the splits look pretty normal?

Fenway’s a good hitter’s park, but nothing is Colorado.

Nomar’s career high in strikeouts was 92, in his rookie year. His second highest was 63, in nearly 700 PA. Story strikes out, well, a wee bit more than that. He’s a good player, but he’s nothing like Nomar.

Tulo was a really good comp for Nomar. Great players, careers cut short by injury.

Nomar: 6,116 PA, 124 OPS+, 44.3 WAR
Tulo: 5,415 PA, 118 OPS+, 44.5 WAR

As for this signing, I'm really happy about it. First and foremost, it's something happening, which is fun to read about and talk about! But digging slightly deeper than that, Story seems like a really good fit for Bloom's plans for the Sox. He presumably will improve their infield defense and adds to their flexibility. He slots in as the starter at 2B, and since he can cover short when Xander's out, this allows Arroyo to back up 2B, 3B, and SS (when he's healthy). He also provides insurance in case they are unable to sign Xander to an extension. (I know others think this means that Xander's gone, but I am optimistic that they want to keep him around. And given the deals that Story and Baez got, there's a chance Xander won't be expecting $300 million.)

The contract structure itself is also pretty great from the team's perspective. I am not sure how to calculate this, exactly, but I think the team option sort of cancels out the player option in terms of value.

And now that they're over the first tax threshold and will have to give up a pick, I'm hoping this means that Conforto is next.

Or he could have a .310 OBP (his road figure for his career in Coors), and become an offensive millstone.

I don't think this is the best way to look at this for a couple reasons. First, players tend to hit better at home. You'd expect is road OBP to be worse than his overall, even if he played in a neutral park. Second, there's the Coors hangover effect. Okay, a 3rd reason (why not?): Coors is a really good hitter's park but since the humidor it has not been the launching pad it was in the past.

Yeah, I knew all of that, and you know that I know all of that (maybe I should maintain a file chock full of qualifying statements that I can copy and paste so as to bog down threads whenever I get the chance). But he's 29, likely past his peak, and had a fair to middling season in 2021, with a .329 overall OBP, .292 on the road. Your little confounding factors might get that figure up to merely mediocre from pretty abysmal, if he hasn't already started his decline phase. When I clicked on his splits that definitely jumped out at me, and if I was the Sox front office it certainly would have given me more than a coffee cup's worth of pause. Esp. since he might end up blocking the best prospect we've had in elephant's years even if he is 2 years or so out.

This signing has a significant chance to turn out to be Carl Crawford bad.

The post-Coors career of former Rox is hard to judge. There haven't actually been many good hitters who spent time in CO and the Rox have generally held onto them at least into their mid-30s at which point pretty much every hitter's future is hit or miss. Holliday certainly carried on just fine; Dexter Fowler was about the same; and the freak LeMahieu. Older guys in days gone by like Burks, Walker and Galarraga continued to hit. On the other hand, Bichette, Castilla, Neifi and the innumerable Rox I can't remember anymore did nothing after they moved on.

One thing I noticed back in the day was that the guys who did hit well post-Coors had solid road OPS while at Coors -- not to say they didn't have a huge H/R gap or that their road OPS didn't get better afterward (I think some did, some didn't) but that they were good hitters on the road, at least in their last 2-3 years in CO (i.e. looks like they had adjusted). Then there's the weirdo LeMahieu. His road OPS over the last 6 years (3 in CO, 3 in NY): 747, 753, 699, 818, 759, 756. Not a lot going on there. He was so good overall in 2019-20 because he had a big H/R split (977 and 1265! at home).

Eyeballing it, Story has been about a 105 OPS+ hitter on the road. That's close enough to his overall 112 OPS+ and still features a 200 ISO that it's hard to see any reason to expect a big drop in relative numbers (obviously the raw BA and ISO are in for a shock unless he's LeMahieu II). And with that glove (maybe wasted at 2B) and good baserunning, a 105 OPS+ is plenty valuable. Like pretty much anybody else, the wheels might have come off by the time the last couple of years of the contract roll around but he's only being paid for about 15-20 WAR here. Barring injury, hard to see him missing that lower mark.

This is way less money than I expected, given the Seager contract. Seager's a better player (slightly) and a year younger, but . . . Storey is very good himself, and unlike Seager he stays on the field. Not that $140M is anything to sneeze at, but it's at least $60M below what I expected, even given the relative brevity of the deal. I would have pegged him at something like $210M/7 years.

Obviously 292 is bad but AL OBP last year was just 316 (keeps pitchers out of it), 313 at 2B. He adds about 50 points of ISO relative to 2B, about 70 relative to SS. His road OPS last year was 718, same as the average AL 2B/SS and that's despite a horrific 235 BABIP (career road BABIP of 317). Give him a BABIP around 300 and he's right back at his career road 241 BA and probably a bit above his 310 OBP. And given his road ISO, I'm assuming he'll enjoy hitting at Fenway even if he has to make up for some lost HRs with flyouts turned into doubles by the Monster.

Without question, if his future is a 200 BA on a 250 BABIP then he's turned into Tony Batista and this deal won't work out well.

The offensive gap between Story and Seager is pretty large -- 11 Rbat/650 vs 25 -- Story makes up for it with his glove. Teams always pay more for bats than gloves. I think we all think Seager didn't deserve that contract and its success depends a lot on him being healthier but I don't think it's hard to see Seager with great upside and, given the bat, more likely to be useful when the defense slips.

Baez of course is an obvious comp for Seager, in some ways they're even fairly similar hitters:

JB 2018-21: 1988 PA, 270/311/508, 113 OPS+, 35 Rbat, 18 WAR, 12 WAA, 7.5 dWAR
TS 2018-21: 2166 PA, 281/348/512, 118 OPS+, 53 Rbat, 20 WAR, 13 WAA, 6.8 dWAR

and of course Baez got 6/$140, both turning 29. Baez has the horrendous K/BB and disastrous 2020; Story has Coors uncertainty but pretty consistent. So my objective self would rather bet on Story over 6 years but it's close enough that none of us should have much confidence in picking one or the other.

From the Athletic:

Story is also one of the fastest players in baseball, posting an average sprint speed of 28.5 feet per second in Denver, enabling him to steal 20-plus bases in each of the last three 162-game seasons.

I had no idea

He’s a good player, but he’s nothing like Nomar.

Hey, you ask me, nobody's in the same category as Nomar. :)

My thinking, just from a cursory look at his stats, was that he's got enough power to hit them into Fenway's odd angles and enough speed that he might be able to grab an extra base or two as a result, the way I probably remember Nomar having more triples than he really did. Which, if it works out, will be a lot of fun, memorable nights at Fenway.

As a Jays fan I'm fine if Story matches Nomar's career from here on out - age 29 to the end Garciaparra was worth 9.2 bWAR over 662 games over 7 seasons while making just shy of $56 million - of course 6.1 of that was age 29 (this year for Story). If Boston shells out $140 million for under 10 WAR then yeah, as a Jays fan I'm happy. Middle infielders have a poor record for post age 30 record, no matter how good they were pre-30. I'm guessing the wear and tear of it is the issue.

In case it wasn't obvious from my other posts, I'd rank the SS contracts in this order (from the team perspective) [CAVEAT: I haven't looked at how the contracts are structured in terms of deferrals, etc.]:

Correa 3/$105
Story 6/$140
Baez 6/$140
(Semien 7/$175)
Seager 10/$320

I don't think of Semien as a SS but he has played plenty of it. That's the ranking I'm most uncertain of -- 2019 and 2021 were huge offensively but the rest is mediocre. This contract takes him through 37 (Baez & Story through 34) but his bat is probably a better bet than Baez's bat. The difference between 6/$140 and 7/$175 isn't THAT big. Still I assume he'll be mainly at 2B in his 30s.

Yeah, I knew all of that, and you know that I know all of that (maybe I should maintain a file chock full of qualifying statements that I can copy and paste so as to bog down threads whenever I get the chance).

I was trying to disagree with you and explain why, but clearly something about the way I did it rubbed you the wrong way. Sorry for that.

I wonder what Trea Turner gets in 2023 if he puts up another .315+ season with pop and being the fastest player who isn't bad at baseball (he's marginally faster than Buxton it seems -- there are maybe 3-4 guys marginally faster than Turner, but none of any note with a bat).

I'd have to think he'd at least be looking at 7/$210 and perhaps some more than that.

#8 I know that the last time I checked when projecting Colorado players the road splits had no significance. I know in the early days of ZiPS Dan said the same thing.

Haven't checked recently. Maybe things have changed, but I'm skeptical.

I mean projections are pretty noisy at the best of times, but you can't tighten them up by include road splits into the mix.

And given the deals that Story and Baez got, there's a chance Xander won't be expecting $300 million.)

The negatives on those two are:
1. How much of his production is due to Coors?
2. Risk of complete collapse at the plate since he strikes out 10 times for every walk

Xander is a lot more like Seager, consistent, all around good hitter. Not as much range as you want at short, may hit better at third down the road. But Xander comes without the injury history. He will be two years older next winter than Seager was this offseason. If he puts up another 300/375/500 season playing everyday, he’ll be expecting to break the bank.

how much should we worry about the arm injury?

how much should we worry about the arm injury?

I’m going on the basis that he's on the mend, based on his dramatic improvement at the plate in the last two months of the 2021 season:

April-July: 241/314/746
August/Sept: 268/357/899

But I’m sure there are other reasons for that improvement and reasons to be ascared.

BBRef Rfield per 162 games

+15 Story
-9 Bogarts

Aren't they moving the wrong guy to 2B?

It looks like a lot of folks just overestimated the number of teams willing to consider 10-year mega-deals on a shortstop, either because they didn’t want to block prospects, had a currently acceptable MLB option, didn’t want to risk that much money on one player, preferred to keep the $$ in the owner’s wallet, or some combination of those factors. I also wonder if anyone decided it was worth waiting for Trea Turner? There’s still a chance one of the guys on shorter-term deals ends up with the most money, particularly if we experience a couple of years of Jimmy Carter era double-digit inflation.

Xander is a lot more like Seager, consistent, all around good hitter. Not as much range as you want at short, may hit better at third down the road. But Xander comes without the injury history. He will be two years older next winter than Seager was this offseason. If he puts up another 300/375/500 season playing everyday, he’ll be expecting to break the bank.

I see your points, here. He may still think he can get $300 mil and he may still be able to get that. But I do think these contracts make it less likely that they need to go that high to keep him.

BBRef Rfield per 162 games

+15 Story
-9 Bogarts

Aren't they moving the wrong guy to 2B?

No. The Red Sox are trying a new shift next year where they play their SS on the right side of the infield and their second basemen on the left.

If Story is playing well through 4 years, does he opt out? Or does he play out the 2 years to get to FA and not let the Red Sox lock him up for another year?

Aren't they moving the wrong guy to 2B?

In a vacuum, yeah, probably. In Boston, Xander is one of the two most popular players on the team and has an opt-out at the end of the season - and the only reason why he's not one of the three most popular players on the team is a trade that still stings for some fans a couple years later. I suspect Bloom and Cora are either looking for a way to get him to buy into a position shift more organically or figuring that the difference is not as large as what they'd wind up with if Bogaerts opts out and the guy that replaces him is a not-ready Jeter Downs or the like, rather than burning a bridge they don't have to.

Winning fixes a lot and the Red Sox have at least a 40-year history of losing fan favorites in ways that probably could have been avoided without completely poisoning the well, so I don't know how much this matters, but I kind of suspect they'd rather not see how much the fanbase bears up if it seems like the team pushed Mookie and Xander out the door in rapid succession.

the only minor criticism to add is that Story's BABIP has dropped precipitously from .33-.34 to .29 last year. If you multiply his LD% by .700 (the BABIP on LD as I recall) that would pretty well match up with that. But his K rate is the same.

As Walt suggested: he really only has to avg 3WAR for the life of the contract for this to be a fair deal.

Aren't they moving the wrong guy to 2B?

The guy with throwing arm elbow problems? Probably not.

I guess this is kind of lesser version of the Jeter-Rodriguez pairing, whereby the classy veteran got to hold on to his position, even though the new guy is a better defender. I like Story as an athlete, so I'm not worried about him adjusting to 2B/CF/3B.

The other angle is that Story likely can transition to the pivot better than X.

Grrr ... look 10 year contracts get handed out to three types of players, the occasional future HoFer in their early 30s (Pujols, Cano); stars who hit FA sometime around the ages of 26-27; and your superstar 22-year-olds (who might get more than 10 years). Xander's opt-out comes after his age 29 seson -- nobody is offering him 10 years, probably not more than 7 which means he's not looking at $300 M. Now will Xander get $30 AAV -- that's certainly possible (I'm guessing not).

Nobody expected Baez to get 10 years -- he's too inconsistent and it would take him through age 38. Story is consistent but also a 10-year would take him through age 38. I don't know of anybody who expected them to get $30 AAV either but maybe. Seager was always an interesting FA decision but seems to me everybody was pretty stunned when he got 10/$325 and I don't know of anybody who thinks that was a good idea. (7/$210 or 8/$240 I think was a possibility.)

Now it is fair to say there was high expectation for Correa to get 10 years and at least $300 M, probably $350 M and that expectation probably went up when Seager got his deal.

FWIW, here are MLBTR's predictions from November:

Correa 10/$320
Seager 10/$305 (maybe I shouldn't have been so surprised)
Semien 6/$138
Story 6/$126
Baez 5/$100

Except for Correa, they were a bit low on every one of those, not high.

Again, star position players are signed to contracts that take them through age 36 (occasionally 37 but also occasionally just 35). They are nearly all structured and priced in a way that they are expected to produce the vast majority of the value being paid for by age 33. Teams are not expecting much value at 34-36 and essentially are not willing to commit real money beyond that (unless it's part of a pretty obvious deferral scheme).

So sure, Miggy, Pujols, Trout ... and Cano ... get signed into old age ... and at least two of those contracts turned out very badly.

Assuming Story does move to 2B - does that limit his SS play in the future? Let's assume the Sox sign Devers to a long term contract and Xander stays, and Yorke continues to develop, in '24 there's got to be a serious discussion about moving Devers to DH, Xander to 3B, Story to SS, and Yorke to 2B, right? Have guys successfully transitioned UP the defensive spectrum after two years? Machado has always been seen as a SS, but glancing at his defensive numbers, looks like he's much better suited to 3B.

Have guys successfully transitioned UP the defensive spectrum after two years?

Eckstein did it at the major league level (he was almost exclusively a 2B in the minors). Of course, he was quite a bit younger when it happened.

Michael Young was pretty much the same butcher at SS as he was at 2B. Does that count?

Also, Story will be 31 in 2024. He'd most likely be a diminished defender either way.

Have guys successfully transitioned UP the defensive spectrum after two years?

Miguel Cabrera went back to 3B for 2012-13 after being almost exclusively a 1B since 2008. Whether that was a “success,” well…

I think it's unusual that Story's future position may hinge largely two things:

1) Does Xander stay in Boston (that seems unlikely, IMO); and
2) Which, if any, of the middle infield minor leaguers near the top of Boston's prospect list will force the issue first.

Jeter Downs is commonly disregarded as part of this conversation, but he was promoted very aggressively by the Red Sox in 2021, after losing a full season in 2020, and being traded right before that. He is still young, and will get a full season at AAA to see if his promise can be realized. He is the closest, by level, in the organization to "forcing the issue".

Nick Yorke is the one with all the momentum, will start the season in high-A, but won't be there long if he continues where he left in 2021. In his first stint of high-A as a 19 year old, he went .333/.406/.571. If he does anything like that to start 2022, he'll be in Portland quickly. I think of Betts (not that they are the same player), but he was the last guy in Boston's system who made everybody go, "OK, I thought he was a prospect...but not a superstar!" At age 19, Betts showed good strike zone judgment, but zero power in the NY Penn League, At age 20, he had a good low-A start, got promoted to high-A, and went off. That's when the buzz got real. At age 21, they started him at AA, he went off even more, then 55 games at AAA, then they brought him up to the big leagues at the end of his age 21 season.

What's crazy is that Yorke's hit tool is way ahead of Betts at the same age. Once the Red Sox figured out Betts might be special, they promoted him extremely aggressively. They moved him from 2B to OF, and he never missed a beat. I'll be curious, given Yorke will probably be in AA before the end of his age 20 season, if they may try him in the outfield, as well. He may move up the system so quickly that Story's 2023 position is actually part of the discussion of what to do with Yorke.

And then the third prospect, further away, is Marcelo Mayer. Super high ceiling, but only 18, and will start at low-A in 2022. Looked very comfortable in FCL as an 18-year-old, showed some power, nice defense, everything they hoped for. If he starts well in low-A, nothing is really blocking him from moving up quickly - and he definitely would stay as a SS.

One of the most intriguing parts of this coming season, as a Red Sox fan, will be watching these three guys, and how the Red Sox move them around the system - and potentially between positions.

Have guys successfully transitioned UP the defensive spectrum after two years?

Ichiro shifted to CF for a while. I don't recall the shift being unsuccessful.

Remember, players are positioned where they have both skills and opportunity. Lou Whitaker wasn't going to play SS, but that doesn't mean he wasn't capable. He clearly wasn't going to get the opportunity. Mookie Betts plays RF almost entirely because Boston wasn't moving Dustin Pedroia off 2B.

OT, but this is the most-used thread right now: longtime BBTF fixture Madeline Albright has passed at 84. RIP.