Colorado Rockies Down On The Farm: Trevor Story

Oct. 9, 2014; Mesa, AZ, USA; Colorado Rockies infielder T. Story plays for the Salt River Rafters against the Mesa Solar Sox during an Arizona Fall League game at Cubs Park. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

The Colorado Rockies just traded a superstar, paving the way for a young prospect who’s done nothing but hit in AAA the last few weeks. Is he ready?

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The Colorado Rockies moved their biggest impediment to the continuing development of Trevor Story and Cristhian Adames on Monday, when they traded their superstar, big league shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, to the Toronto Blue Jays for Jose Reyes (who is playing shortstop for now, but will be gone pretty soon), and a bevy of pitching prospects.

Adames ought to get his own shot at a big league job, now — and we’ve written about why and how that should happen before here — but this post in particular is about Story.

Story came up to AAA Albuquerque a few weeks ago from AA New Britain, and he’s done nothing but hit the ball since he got to New Mexico. In 23 AAA games, he’s now slashed .286/.314/.622 with seven home runs and twelve doubles, and 28 hits, in just 102 plate appearances.

There are red flags, for sure; he’s struck out 22 times in those 102 plate appearances against only four walks seeing AAA pitching for the first time. And his defensive range is considered limited at shortstop, though that’s his natural position and the Rockies will likely keep him there for as long as possible now that Tulo has been cleared.

Not for nothing, as exciting of a prospect as Story may be, he’s still only a .263/.349/.472 minor leaguer, with 584 strikeouts in just over 1,900 minor league at-bats. The lowlight of his pro career so far came in his first go-round in AA Tulsa in 2014, when he hit just .200/.302/.380 in 237 plate appearances.

However, he regained his form in New Britain early this year, and then continued the hot streak in Albuquerque, enough to be named the PCL Player of the Week over the recent past seven days.

Is it enough to leap frog Adames? Is it enough to replace Tulo? Obviously, Story nor Adames are going to play the same game as Tulo did, but will either/both have enough of an impact at the big league level in 2016 to make up for some of the loss of Tulowitzki as the Rockies re-tool with young prospects?

Either way, get to know Trevor Story — he’s going to get a lot of chances to prove himself to the Rockies over the next several years.

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