SAN DIEGO — Trevor Story bunkered himself in a hotel room this week in California, on edge and waiting. Every time his phone buzzed, he tensed. He tried to tear himself off Twitter, but train wrecks make for rubbernecks.
“The last three days felt like the longest days ever,” the Rockies’ star shortstop said Saturday. “I was lost in it.”
He was baseball’s most obvious trade piece before a deadline that became one of the wildest in recent memory. But every buzz and alert and ding on his phone only left him more removed. Javier Báez was traded to the Mets. Trea Turner to the Dodgers. Freddy Galvis went to the Phillies. All of them shortstops.
Story thought the same way the rest of baseball did, that as a two-time All-Star with a thunderous bat and an expiring contract, he would surely be traded to a contending team. His Rockies remain stuck in the mud of another losing season. He was their lifeline out, a chance to retool for next season.
The Rockies, though, don’t exist on the same plane as the rest of baseball. And as the afternoon deadline passed with a flurry of late trades around the league, Story found himself still on the Rockies roster. Four months of angst and stress left him nowhere.
“I was really confused. I didn’t have great things to say about the situation,” Story said. “Guys like me in a situation I’m in, I was expecting something.
