Trevor Story<\/a>. \u201cHe came into the office, he\u2019s like, \u2018I\u2019m in. I ain\u2019t going nowhere.’\u201d<\/p>\nThe six-year, $140 million contract Story signed in March 2022 included a club option for \u201928 and an opt-out after the \u201925 season. Plenty of players in his position would\u2019ve taken the out. Though Boston\u2019s first winning season and playoff berth since \u201921 had just come to a crushing end in the Wild Card series, Story was coming off his best season in over half a decade. With his 33rd birthday a month away and a work stoppage likely when the Collective Bargaining Agreement expires at the end of the \u201926 season, it would have made sense to attempt to seek a longer-term contract while his comeback season was still fresh in teams\u2019 minds.<\/p>\n
But Story, in part because he felt loyal to the Red Sox for sticking by him through his injuries and struggles, chose to stay.<\/p>\n
The shortstop\u2019s decision was particularly important because the Red Sox were about to lose fellow veteran leaders Rob Refsnyder and Alex Bregman to free agency. (Bregman opted out of the remaining two years of his three-year, $120 million contract in November.)<\/p>\n
\u201cExcited about him,\u201d Cora said after watching Story take batting practice on Friday morning. \u201cHe\u2019s night-and-day compared to (spring training) last year. Last year, he was trying to find himself. Today, there was a lot of confidence in that batting practice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Story reported to camp last February having played a combined 69 games over the previous two years. Offseason elbow surgery cost him nearly the entire \u201923 campaign. He was healthy for the \u201924 preseason, only to suffer a left-shoulder subluxation, which required another surgery, in the eighth game of the season. Originally expected to miss the remainder of the year, he returned 134 games later. But by then, the Red Sox were falling out of the postseason race.<\/p>\n
Last season began on shaky ground, too. Story slashed .216\/.260\/.326 in 56 games between Opening Day and the end of May. Speculation grew that the veteran shortstop was at risk of getting benched, or worse.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a game in Milwaukee,\u201d Cora said, recalling the team\u2019s final May road trip. \u201cI think it was the seventh or eighth, and he bunted on his own. That\u2019s where he was offensively.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we said that the god of baseball, the baseball gods, kind of like, rewarded him after that baseball play.\u201d<\/p>\n
From June 1 until the final game of the season, Story slashed .289\/.334\/.492, with 114 hits, 26 doubles, 18 home runs, 73 RBI and 22 stolen bases in 101 games. He played 157 games, matching his career-high with the 2018 Colorado Rockies. Story also set an impressive American League record by beginning the season 31-for-31 in stolen base attempts before getting caught in late September. It\u2019s the second-longest streak to start an MLB season since 1951, when caught-stealing became an official stat in both leagues.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was one of the best hitters in the big leagues the last four months of the season,\u201d Cora said. \u201cImagine, if he had a decent May, (we\u2019re) talking All-Star.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think May was needed,\u201d Cora continued. \u201c(Story) took one day off, and I don\u2019t know what happened there, but he reset and came out swinging in Atlanta.\u201d<\/p>\n
Story told MassLive\u2019s Chris Cotillo he recalls the Yankee Stadium conversation going a bit differently, but his mind was already made up.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t ever like, \u2018Hey dude, I\u2019m coming back, I\u2019m opting in,’\u201d he said. \u201cIt was more about talking about the future, and I think there was just an understanding that this is where I want to be, and he knew that. I knew.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve kinda got to play the game a little bit or whatever, but obviously, I knew.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT MYERS, Fla. \u2013 In the minutes after their Wild Card series defeat last October, as members of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":570832,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2375],"tags":[858,5,141,48,2542,4,89,2543,151,1035],"class_list":{"0":"post-570831","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boston-red-sox","8":"tag-alex-cora","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-boston","11":"tag-boston-red-sox","12":"tag-bostonredsox","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-red-sox","15":"tag-redsox","16":"tag-spring-training","17":"tag-trevor-story"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116065177917386337","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}