Dodgers View: Why Corey Seager is Better Than Trevor Story

Editor’s Note: Part of the fun of having a FanSided community is working with the editors who cover the other teams in the National League. I reached out to Dodgers Way editor Alex Campos to help me settle a debate: Who’s the best young shortstop in the NL West … Corey Seager or Trevor Story?

Of course, I took Story’s side and wrote about that for Dodgers Way. You can read that here. Campos has written below why he feels Seager is the future of the division.

I have a feeling this point-counterpoint will draw some responses, so feel free to give us your thoughts below.

Hello Colorado Rockies fans. I come in peace, I promise. I’m just here to write about why the Los Angeles Dodgers own the true chosen rookie shortstop in the division.

This idea came along while I was tweeting during the Dodgers’ first series in San Diego. That was a fun series and the Dodgers didn’t allow a run the whole series. However, someone else was taking all the headlines. Trevor Story hit two home runs on Opening Day against Arizona’s Zack Greinke (and the petty part of me was ready to buy a Story jersey right then and there). I had barely heard of Story before the season and thought if you guys were going to find another Tulo, it would be Brendan Rodgers. Story was quite the … legendary tale for the first few weeks of the season, with a league-leading eight dingers in the first 15 games of his career. I jokingly tweeted to Rox Pile editor Kevin Henry to back off, because there was only room in this league for one stud rookie shortstop … and that was going to be Corey Seager. And here we are.

Story has been a pleasure to watch and is hitting the snot out of the ball, but it’s just not sustainable. We should never take three weeks worth of stats too seriously (or else Kenta Maeda would be the greatest pitcher of all time), so let’s look forward.

Prospect rankings also shouldn’t be taken as fact, but Story was last rated on an MLB.com prospect list in 2012, when he was the 78^th-ranked prospect in baseball and the ninth-ranked shortstop prospect. Seager was drafted that year, and after less that a full year in the minors, he was named the 48^th-best prospect in baseball and the eighth-best shortstop, with Story being bumped from the list altogether. Story seemingly just fell off prospect lists for a couple of years, failing to crack the Rockies top 10 in 2014 and 2015. Seager kept rising, and finally overtook Byron Buxton for the top prospect honor in baseball.

There’s no denying the incredible start to Story’s career, but to expect him to maintain an ISO almost .200 more than Bryce Harper last season and a 38 percent HR/FB rate is just setting yourself up to be disappointed. Story could be a 30-40 home run threat, which would be great for a young, rebuilding team. However, other than dingers and slugging percentage, there’s really no other metric I could logically expect Story to outperform Seager in moving forward.

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If we DO want to look at the three-week sample size, Story has had a phenomenal start to his major league career. Somehow, Seager had an even better start. I’m not talking about this season, as he’s put up somewhat human numbers to begin 2016 and it took him 11 games to hit his first homer of the season. Seager came up for the Dodgers last year, taking Jimmy Rollins’ spot in the lineup and at short. In 27 games, Seager still couldn’t hit as many homers as Story hit in the first 15 games of his career. Seager probably wont ever sniff 40 home runs, but in the last month of last season, he put together a .337/.425/.561 triple slash and walked 14 times compared to 19 strikeouts. That wasn’t in April while players are still shaking off the cobwebs. He was thrown into the thick of the playoff race and the 21-year-old more than held his own. He (along with all the other Dodgers) struggled in the postseason against the Mets’ three-headed pitching monster, but Seager’s first month in the league was second-to-none.

This was a really hard post to write, as I didn’t want anything I’ve written to be taken as a slight towards Story. I really want Story to go on to have a phenomenal career, but I EXPECT Seager to do that. It’s terrifying that Story was the SECOND-best shortstop prospect the Rockies had entering this season. I guess you can move Rodgers to third. It’s not like you guys have a young stud there too…

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Trevor Story could become an all-star and be a mainstay in Colorado, much like Tulo was. That seems to be his ceiling at the moment. Seager was already mentioned in MVP talks. His demeanor and attitude is just on another level, and if you gave me a choice between the two, I would take Seager in a heartbeat. There’s probably one shortstop in baseball I would consider over Seager, and that’s Carlos Correa. I expect the two of them to be the next Derek Jeter/ARod. We still need a Nomar Garciaparra to round out that trio. I just don’t know if that’ll be Story. Maybe Rodgers! (Probably Francisco Lindor or Dansby Swanson TBH)

Thanks for reading guys. Good luck this season. Keep your guys healthy, and don’t let Coors Field injure all the Dodgers.