Trevor Storey benefited from playing half his baseball games at Coors Field, but now that he has a new home, he has to deal with the same question that haunted the ex-Rockies before him: Will he be producing the same outside Colorado? could?
Thin air, paired with hitter-friendly Coors, has helped produce comically offensive numbers for the Rockies and opponents alike for the franchise over nearly 30 years. Now, as Storey reportedly heads to the Boston Red Sox, he will become the latest to fight the narrative that his production at this point has been a byproduct of his home field.
On the surface, it's certainly fair to wonder whether the story will keep up the same numbers going forward. Their home-street divides are quite dramatic, even by Colorado's well-defined standards.
At first glance, it's not pretty. That's a 40-home run pace per 162 games at Coors and "only" 28 dingers per year on the road. It probably should go without saying that 28 home runs, good run production, solid base-running and good infield defense are still valuable enough, but people are dumb sometimes.
However, the important thing to remember with Story moving to Boston is that she now gets to play at Fenway Park. It's not like Story is moving from Colorado to pitcher-friendly stadiums like we see in San Francisco or Oakland or Detroit. Fenway is still a hitters park, and Story will regularly get the chance to target Green Monsters. According to MLB Park factors, Fenway is clearly not as friendly as Coors, but what Story could lose in a home run should also make up for it in doubles or triples. He will be playing in an even better lineup, so it stands to reason that he should see an uptick in run production, even if he isn't hitting as many dingers.
There is also this: If Story continues to hit the ball as it has in the past—higher, harder and more often than not pull-side up—then he should continue to have impressive offensive numbers. Just look at this image of Baseball Savant laying out all of Story's 2021 non-home run batting balls atop Fenway Park.
In the interest of fairness, here's his home spray chart; Maybe one or two, at the most, who won't leave the park on Fenway.
Again, it wouldn't be surprising to see some home runs turn from tins into doubles or singles. But not to fall into the weeds, a few years ago FanGraph did a study in Boston looking at the physics of balls in left field. One of the major takeaways, and it's not the only way to see it, but any ball hitting it with a launch angle of 30 degrees or greater as well as an exhaust velocity of 95 mph should clear the monster . For what it's worth, Storey hit 34 balls matching that criterion, pulling 13 of them.
After all, what does this really mean? It's hard to say. There are a lot of elements to consider, but it certainly doesn't look like the story will completely flutter outside of Coors Field. Also notable is that St. Louis Cardinals third baseman Nolan Arenado scored 34 home runs with .807 OPS in his first season away from Colorado. He is a good player who does good things wherever he plays.