NY Yankees: The time is now to go after Trevor Story

One superstar from Colorado is already off the board, now it may be time for the New York Yankees to go after the other one if they want to add another piece to their World Series-hopeful roster in 2021.

The St. Louis Cardinals traded for super star third baseman Nolan Arenado at the beginning of the month and got away absolutely scot-free. The Cards are an organization, and particularly a front office and scouting department, that has not had the best recent history.

It is the right time for the New York Yankees to go after Trevor Story

Known for a long time as one of the premier scouting departments in baseball with the always reliable “next man up” system they lived by, the Cardinals have found themselves at the bottom of the barrel in a lot of recent transactions. Not so much to the widespread knowledge of them either.

They uncharacteristically missed on Randy Arozarena by allowing him to get away to Tampa and set a postseason home run record. They made the blockbuster trade for Paul Goldschmidt and he got off to a horrid start in 2019; it is only now that the Goldy trade is starting to gain its legs. They also allowed, like Arozarena, Tommy Pham to slip away to Tampa in a trade for Genesis Cabrera, Roel Ramirez, and Justin Williams– none of those three have really paid off yet. The Andrew Miller signing hasn’t been all that great either and they let Marcell Ozuna go to the Atlanta Braves who were going to be challenging them in the National League last season, to which Ozuna put up MVP-caliber numbers. Luke Voit didn’t look so bad last year either.

And they’ve also gone under-the-radar with the influx of major injuries sustained by their key players. Carlos Martinez, at one time their stud ace on the rise, has been set back since his Tommy John. Miles Mikolas needed surgery on a major forearm strain. Jordan Hicks dealt with his battle at Tommy John and is starting to come back. Now Dakota Hudson is headed for an inactive 2021 after going under the knife.

On top of all of that, they failed to win the NL Central last year and massively underperformed even though the division was theirs for the taking.

What I’ve been keen to are a fair amount of missteps by the Cardinals in the past couple of years that have made me scratch my head and wonder where the Cardinals I know have gone. What this team REALLY needed was a pick-me-up move and boy did they ever get it.

The Cards have been flailing, but they found a team that’s flailing even more wildly, and that’s the Colorado Rockies. The team with such good talent in its pitching staff and a bang-up lineup in the most hitter-friendly park in baseball should have been a recipe for an NL West crown at the very least. But they couldn’t do it. They could not get themselves together and because of it, they have become one of the league’s most walked-over franchises, and that’s the same league with the Pittsburgh Pirates in it who let Tyler Glasnow, Josh Bell, Jameson Taillon, Austin Meadows, and Gerrit Cole go and brought back lower-down prospects and Chris Archer.

I can’t explain to you how they did it. The Cardinals have one of the most loaded farm systems in baseball with guys coming up who can all become A-grade players. They gave up none of them in their trade for Nolan Arenado. No Matthew Liberatore. No Nolan Gorman, who would actually make some sense considering he’s a third baseman. No Dylan Carlson. No Junior Fernandez. Not even a Luken Baker who has some ways to go.

All the Cards gave up in return for a 5-time All Star and consistent MVP candidate is Austin Gomber and a handful of lower-down prospects. Am I missing something? Is Arenado on his way downward to obscurity and are the Cardinals about to lose out on yet another trade, or did they completely shellac the Rockies in this trade?

Well, if the Rockies are just going to give their stars away, maybe the Yankees should take note and try to land themselves their franchise shortstop in Trevor Story who’s going to be pretty much all alone now with just Charlie Blackmon to protect him in the lineup.

Let’s be honest with ourselves, shall we? The Yankees have been Jonesing for a shortstop ever since Derek Jeter retired. Didi Gregorius provided them with the star power they needed, but they let him get away not once but twice all in the name of pushing one Gleyber Torres to be the Yankees’ next franchise shortstop.

For as good as Gleyber is at the dish, and he certainly is- don’t get me wrong- he is in no way in position to be an everyday shortstop at the Major League level. Not after what he showed last year when the job was 100% his.

He’ll make you the flashy play, but the routine one, his mind will wander elsewhere much like one Starlin Castro, a former fellow Chicago Cub and Yankee who New York knows very well I’m sure.

His tenacity is just not there in the field. Compared to the rest of the shortstops in baseball last year, Torres ranked 22nd in fielding percentage (.933), 19th in range factor (3.54), and 96th (when we factor in every player who made at least one appearance at shortstop last year) in defensive WAR (-0.7). Just for deeper comparison, Trevor Story was 7th in defensive WAR with a 0.8.

Point being, Gleyber is a more effective second-baseman and less time spent trying to live up to expectation at short is only going to help him grow as a hitter.

Now, we can go back-and-forth all day long about how elite/not-elite a shortstop Trevor Story is. I tend to not find him as fantastic as say a Javier Baez, Francisco Lindor, or a Dansby Swanson just to throw out some names. His approach to the fielding game is much like his approach to the plate- clunky and hit or miss.

He strikes out a ton and he is susceptible to mishaps in the field; he actually committed more errors than Gleyber last year.

But this is more about Gleyber as well as getting your hands on a premier shortstop in this league from a team who is gifting away stars for discounts.

Gleyber has MVP potential and I bet you if you take him away from short, his offensive numbers will go up, even more than they already naturally have been.

When it comes to getting your hands on Story, he is a free agent at the end of the 2021 season and is in a lineup stacked with free agent shortstops after this year. Going after him now will put the Yankees in better position to either hold onto him as their next franchise shortstop (who is better than Gleyber at the position) or propel them to winning out on a Javier Baez or Francisco Lindor sweepstakes come 2021’s offseason.

For my money, Lindor is a Met for life now that they’ve become the Clippers of MLB and if Javy Baez cannot get himself together at the plate, his stock is going to plummet; remember, Baez was one of the harder-hit stars this past season by the absence of in-game video usage.

Story might just be what the Yankees are looking for long-term. Yes, he just turned 28, but his wheels are still as good as new (95th percentile sprint speed according to Baseball Savant and he led the NL in triples and stolen bases in 2020) and his arm strength is still one of the best in baseball.

He’s right there for the taking and by this time next year, he may be the best option for the Yankees anyway. Get him now while the iron is hot, and by “the iron being hot,” I mean the Rockies dumping stars like hot cakes.