Trevor Story has sports hernia surgery; Red Sox eyeing Mayer at shortstop

Boston's infield is being reorganized around an absence. Trevor Story had sports hernia surgery this week and will be sidelined for an extended period, MLB Trade Rumors reported Friday, citing Jen McCaffrey of The Athletic. The two-time All-Star's recovery is already prompting a positional shift for Marcelo Mayer, with interim manager Chad Tracy indicating the club is planning to move the 23-year-old from second base — where he has played full-time this season — back to shortstop, the position he occupied throughout his entire minor league career.

What happened

Per the report, Tracy addressed the situation publicly on Friday. Mayer was not yet in the lineup at shortstop: he remained at second base for Friday's series opener against the Twins while continuing to work through positional drills with interim bench coach and infield instructor José David Flores. Per the report, the club is hoping Sunday will bring Mayer's first MLB start at shortstop.

The surgery is described only as having taken place "this week." The report characterizes Story's absence as covering "some time" and "an extended period," and no specific return timetable has been attached to his recovery.

Why it matters

Story's absence creates a structural vacancy at shortstop, and the answer Boston appears to be reaching for was always sitting in the prospect file. Mayer was the fourth overall pick in the 2021 draft and played shortstop from the first day of his professional career. His move to second base this season was, in that context, a positional accommodation — and now the accommodation is being reversed.

The report notes that most prospect evaluators believed Mayer would hold up at shortstop despite his 6'3" frame and what the report describes as fringy speed. The case for him at the position, per the report, rested on his fluidity, instincts, and arm strength. The report also carries a caveat worth preserving: Mayer is unlikely to be the flashiest defender at short. That is a meaningfully different assessment than being an inadequate one, and the distinction matters when thinking about what Boston is actually getting back at the position.

Is Mayer ready to play shortstop in the majors right now?

Per the report, not quite yet — at least not as of Friday. Tracy said Mayer is still working through things in drills with Flores, which is why Sunday is the target for his first MLB start at the position rather than the series opener. The framing in the report is that the club is "hoping" to have Mayer at shortstop on Sunday, which preserves some uncertainty around even that near-term timeline.

What is not in question, per the report, is Mayer's familiarity with the position itself. He played shortstop throughout his minor league career, and the evaluator consensus described in the report was always that he belonged there. The work with Flores appears to be about calibrating the transition at the major league level rather than introducing him to the position for the first time. Whether that distinction shows up immediately on the field is something Sunday's game — if it proceeds as planned — will begin to answer.

The mechanics behind the move

When a key infielder requires surgery and is expected to miss an extended stretch, the roster machinery that typically follows involves an injured list placement. Under general league rules, a player placed on the 60-day injured list is removed from the 40-man roster count, which can create flexibility to add a replacement without a corresponding subtraction elsewhere. The report does not specify which injured list designation Story has received or will receive, so the precise roster arithmetic here remains unresolved.

What the report does make clear is that Boston's immediate response is internal rather than transactional: Mayer moves to short, and the second base situation presumably gets addressed separately. Whether the club pursues outside help at either infield spot — or leans on existing depth — is not addressed in the report.

What we don't know yet

The report is explicit that Story will miss an extended period but does not attach a specific return timeline. No timetable has been reported, and the article does not specify which injured list designation Story has received, what the corresponding roster move looks like, or whether the club intends to add a player to cover the vacancy.

It also remains uncertain whether Mayer's Sunday start at shortstop will happen as hoped — Tracy's language, per the report, was aspirational rather than definitive. And while the report describes Mayer's minor league track record at the position favorably, how quickly he settles in at shortstop against major league competition is genuinely unknown.

What to watch

Sunday's lineup card is the first concrete thing to monitor. If Mayer is indeed listed at shortstop, it marks the formal beginning of what could be a significant stretch of playing time at the position — one that, depending on Story's recovery, might extend well into the summer.

Beyond that, watch for any roster move that formalizes Story's injured list placement and clarifies the 40-man and active roster picture. If the club adds a player to cover the infield depth, that transaction will say something about how long Boston expects to be without Story and how much confidence the organization has in its current group to absorb the workload at both middle infield spots.

Flores's role in this transition is also worth tracking. The interim bench coach and infield instructor is described as actively working with Mayer in drills, which suggests the preparation is hands-on and ongoing rather than a one-afternoon orientation. How that work translates once the games count at shortstop — starting, potentially, this weekend — is the question Boston's infield is now organized around answering.

Mayer is 23, was the fourth overall pick in 2021, and spent his entire professional career being evaluated as a shortstop. The Red Sox, per the report, are about to find out whether the evaluators had it right all along.