Twins “showing interest” in Trevor Story

[Mike h]

On another site I read an article about Story's statistical splits. I had no idea that he is such a Jeckle and Hyde player. His batting avg at Coors Field is great; on the road it is terrible. Power numbers are similar- many more home runs at Coors than away. Average it all out, and consider defense, he is among the best. But if these statistics are reliable, we would have a problem: ALL his games will be "away" games, both at Target Field and across the American League.  There will be no more Coors Field advantage to inflate his performance. So pardon me if I don't jump on the bandwagon until I find out if these splits are an aberation.

[GoMNTwins]

I saw on Twitter, by someone with a blue checkmark, that Story has already turned down a $100M+ offer because the team that offered it wanted him to move to 3B. I've also been seeing a lot of people tying him to St Louis, where Paul DeJong has been at SS for some time now.

I'm gonna push these two rumors together and predict that if Story doesn't sign with the Twins, it's because he went to the Cardinals, in which case we trade for Paul DeJong.

 

[GoMNTwins]

4 hours ago, gunnarthor said:

I actually don't want Story. If we have money, I'd spend most of it on pitching. I don't trust someone like Story to stick at short over his contract. That's why I liked adding IKF. If need be, we let Miranda play third, trust that some of our young prospects are major leaguers, and buy a pitching staff.

There's no pitching left to buy.

[big dog]

11 hours ago, RpR said:

The Twins did that last year; Shoemaker failed, until he pitched for the Saints; Happ was very good for St. Louis and not for the Twins, now maybe that says more about Twins coaching but pitchers are not  blind and after the way they dumped Shoemaker, they are not stupid either.

The Giants dumped Shoemaker not long after the Twins did, so I'm not sure that other players see that entirely as a Twins problem. Happ was a #3 level pitcher for 54 innings. Good for him. His first 30 innings with the Twins were even better than that, but it didn't end well.

I agree that they weren't good signings, or weren't signings that worked out for the Twins. I don't think they poisoned the well all that much with other pitchers, though.

I do think maybe getting a shortstop is going to matter to potential pitchers.

[Riverbrian]

In consideration of recent events. The Twins have left themselves almost no other choice. They must sign Trevor Story! 

[TopGunn#22]

As soon as the trade with the Yankees went down I thought Story was a distinct possibility.  And Miranda will NOT be the starting 3B.  That will certainly be Urshela.  Miranda should be replacing Arraez as the Twins utility guy who has more pop.  After fleecing the Reds for Sonny Gray here are a couple moves I would like the Twins to consider now that a LOT of payroll has been shed.

1.  Sign Trevor Story (obviously).

2.  Call the Reds back or call the A's and put a package together for Castillo or Montas.  I would put Austin Martin and Arraez or Larnach on the table.

3.  Once the above two deals were made, make a strong bid for Japanese outfielder Seiya Suzuki to be our LF'er.  

Here's what we would have:

Suzuki, Buxton, Kepler in the OF.  Urshela, Story, Polanco, Kiriloff in the IF.  Sano DH and Sanchez/Jeffers at C.  Miranda is our super sub.  Urshela can play some SS when Story would DH with Miranda at 3B.  I'm not including Arraez because I expect him to be moved for pitching.

Montas/Castillo,  Sonny Gray, Dylan Bundy, Joe Ryan, Bailey Ober is the rotation.  But someone like Winder could shoulder his way in if Bundy stumbles.  Bullpen has Taylor Rogers closing with Alcala as the 8th inning guy.  Maybe Duran is up sooner than we think.  

This is a team that could compete with the White Sox as well as the Guardians and the up and coming Tigers and Royals.  We could even "possibly"...win a playoff game.  It's a pipe dream, I know, but this is what I HOPE the "plan" consists of.  

[Otto von Ballpark]

I decided to look up the road wRC+ of Rockies hitters. Wasn't sure how far back to go, so I used 2002, the year they installed the humidor at Coors Field.

Here's the link to the Fangraphs report:

Rockies hitters, 2002-2021, road stats only

• Among the most experienced Rockies, Story is about 20% (per road wRC+) behind Helton, Hawpe, and Tulowitzki. He's also behind Arenado and Holliday, but only about 10%.
• He's close to Seth Smith, Blackmon, and Carlos Gonzalez. FWIW, Smith played for 6 more years after leaving Colorado and was a pretty successful hitter in that time.
• Among guys worse than Story in this measure, Dickerson and LeMahieu still hit pretty well after leaving the Rockies. A lot of guys further down the list weren't good hitters anywhere.

Not super-encouraging for Story, but I imagine if his road stats were significantly better, he might be looking at a $275+ mil contract like Arenado got.

[gunnarthor]

11 hours ago, GoMNTwins said:

There's no pitching left to buy.

Many mentioned that. I meant if we have payroll, let's use if for pitching. Trade for good pitchers and don't worry about their salary or take on another crappy contract from a team to get a solid pitcher back. But focus on pitching.

[dex8425]

17 hours ago, Bradfoot said:

I would personally stay away from Story, C.J Cron is a good example of how Coors Field can make average hitters look like All Stars.  Correa is probably going to get too much money over too many years.  I would go for a Jonathan Villar type signing and focus on getting another pitcher.

 

C.J Cron on the Twins

.253/.311/.469 wRC+ 101, WAR 0.3

CJ Cron on the Rockies

.281/.375/.530 wRC+ 127, WAR 2.3

What about DJ Lemahieu?

[dex8425]

12 hours ago, Mike h said:

On another site I read an article about Story's statistical splits. I had no idea that he is such a Jeckle and Hyde player. His batting avg at Coors Field is great; on the road it is terrible. Power numbers are similar- many more home runs at Coors than away. Average it all out, and consider defense, he is among the best. But if these statistics are reliable, we would have a problem: ALL his games will be "away" games, both at Target Field and across the American League.  There will be no more Coors Field advantage to inflate his performance. So pardon me if I don't jump on the bandwagon until I find out if these splits are an aberation.

Affects every CO player.  This has been studied for years now and it's not because Coors inflates hitting stats, it's because it's hard to adjust from hitting at altitude to not hitting at altitude. Sliders and curveballs break differently. Fastballs rise differently.  Additionally, it's hard to go back from sleeping at altitude to sleeping at sea level. 

[dex8425]

Words on Story's home/road splits:

https://lastwordonsports.com/baseball/2022/02/07/does-the-coors-field/

[Squirrel]

On 3/14/2022 at 11:08 AM, MN_ExPat said:

I'm not sure it's a matter of getting "out-maneuvered" necessarily.  Generally teams/FOs try to make deals work out mutually for each (at least as best that they can),  If a GM gains a reputation for screwing other teams, no one is going to take them seriously for long.

Not to say though that GMs don't make questionable decisions in who they want to trade for though  .

Would this be an example of out-maneuvered if this happened? Quelle nightmare.

 

 

[ashbury]

On 3/15/2022 at 5:05 AM, Riverbrian said:

In consideration of recent events. The Twins have left themselves almost no other choice. They must sign Trevor Story! 

Never underestimate a franchise's capacity for looking at the situation and simply walking through the fresh paint and leaving whatever marks on the carpet may happen.

[Riverbrian]

7 hours ago, ashbury said:

Never underestimate a franchise's capacity for looking at the situation and simply walking through the fresh paint and leaving whatever marks on the carpet may happen.

OR the capacity to

[MN_ExPat]

10 hours ago, Squirrel said:

Would this be an example of out-maneuvered if this happened? Quelle nightmare.

 

 

Yeah... I got nothing on this one  

[Squirrel]

28 minutes ago, MN_ExPat said:

Yeah... I got nothing on this one  

That won’t happen but I still think the Twins have put themselves in a costly position. Story is gonna cost and pitching is gonna cost. And they could find themselves outbid

[MN_ExPat]

38 minutes ago, Squirrel said:

That won’t happen but I still think the Twins have put themselves in a costly position. Story is gonna cost and pitching is gonna cost. And they could find themselves outbid

Probably.  They could very well have been all in (or at least attempting to be) on Story from the get go, but as we used to say in the army... no plan ever survives combat.  Now I guess we see how the FO pivots to new input/stimulus from the market and other teams.   

I'm fine with an overpay I guess, as long as what they do attempts to make the team better/stronger.  I'm still going to watch regardless (it is baseball after all) . 

[Squirrel]

And then we have this:

 

'Not looking good for $100, Alex'

[ashbury]

10 minutes ago, Squirrel said:

And then we have this:

 

'Not looking good for $100, Alex'

This wording allows 27 other teams the latitude to say after he signs, "we were in the mix, but gosh darn it sometimes you just can't get players to take your money."

[Riverbrian]

On 3/15/2022 at 7:05 AM, Riverbrian said:

In consideration of recent events. The Twins have left themselves almost no other choice. They must sign Trevor Story! 

Well... Looks like I missed this one by a mile. 

[IndianaTwin]

This front office has no idea what it’s doing. All this “in on” Story stuff, and I’m sure they’re not going to get him. 

(Sarcasm, by the way.)

Once again, a lot of ink/keyboard strokes spilt on TD in vain. When will we learn that the FO is rarely pursuing the move we are pushing for and almost always does its work under the radar? Few of us expected Odorizzi, Pineda, Gray, etc., and “everybody” on TD “knew” that Correa wasn’t an option. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

Oh man, this thread aged beautifully.

[Rosterman]

I was half expecting the Twins to overpay for one year of Story. Glad they did it to Correa instead.

[Squirrel]

On 3/17/2022 at 7:32 AM, MN_ExPat said:

Yeah... I got nothing on this one  

Um ... okay ... talking about out-maneuvered ... I think we fans were ... lol ... AND ... I'll say this in a whisper ... I think the Yankees were, too  (Especially happy about that last one)

[ashbury]

Those who insisted that the Twins would never sign Story are feeling pretty vindicated right about now.

[Vanimal46]

Head scratching conclusion to this story. Can’t imagine they’ll move Boegarts off SS. 

[Otto von Ballpark]

Bogaerts can opt out after 2022.

[tony&rodney]

No one saw the Twins as a possibility for Correa. I thought Story eliminated the Twins from any consideration last week when the Twins had still not made any solid moves to pick up pitchers. Story was not looking for another rocky scene. So Story gets to play with a perennial contender and the Twins get the better shortstop while maintaining their financial flexibility. Happiness all around.

[Otto von Ballpark]

Contract details:

Quote

The Red Sox are in agreement with Trevor Story on a six year, $140MM contract. After the fourth year, 2025, Story can opt out of the final two years of the deal. However, Boston can negate that opt-out by picking up a seventh year option for $25MM, or pay a $5MM buyout. If they were to exercise that option, it would add $20MM to the deal, effectively making it a seven-year, $160MM arrangement. Story will not have any no-trade protection as part of the contract

 

[Otto von Ballpark]

Maybe Fenway will help negate some of the “leaving Coors Field” effect?