Major League Baseball is a game of risks. That applies not only to the strategy on the field, but front office spending decisions as well.
The Boston Red Sox made one of those decisions before the 2022 season when they overloaded the shortstop position. By signing two-time All-Star Trevor Story, they built in an insurance plan for if and when beloved homegrown stud Xander Bogaerts left in free agency.
Story got $140 million from the Red Sox; Bogaerts got $270 million from the San Diego Padres the following winter. Frankly, both front offices would like those contracts back at this point, but there’s nothing either side can do but hope the player rebounds.
Story has been able to play in just 163 games over his first three seasons in Boston. After the fourth, one Red Sox beat reporter is predicting that the two sides will part ways.
In a recent column outlining 25 predictions for the Red Sox’s 2025 season, Chris Cotillo of MassLive expressed his belief that this would be Story’s last year with the club.
“This seems hard to envision with how the first three years of Story’s Boston tenure have gone,” Cotillo wrote.
“But there’s a couple outs for the Red Sox with three years left on Story’s deal. The first is a winter trade, no matter how he performs in 2025. The other is an opt-out clause that he could exercise if he rebounds.”
If Story does not opt out, the Red Sox will owe him $50 million through 2027. He’d hit the open market entering his age-35 season at that point, so the calculus on his part is whether or not he can top that $50 million on his next deal, even if it might be spread over a couple extra years.
The more likely scenario, unfortunately, would seem to be a trade. Story’s contract probably won’t ever look appealing to other teams, but if he can rebound to the point where it’s not an albatross, he may be movable if the Red Sox eat some money.
