Heinrich Gustav Magnus probably didn’t foresee Trevor Story.

After all, Magnus lived in the mid-19th century and Story, of course, is a Major League Baseball player in the 21st. But they’re inextricably linked, as is every player in the 29-year history of the Colorado Rockies with the German physicist who probably never heard of the American pastime of “base ball,” then in its infancy.

That’s because Magnus discovered a phenomenon that bears his name and is an underlying cause of why Rockies hitters, collectively, have never hit well away from their home ballpark in Denver.

The Magnus Effect explains why breaking balls don’t break in the Mile-High altitude of Coors Field. With the thinner air, there is less resistance to a spinning object hurled through it -- in this case, a baseball from a mound to home plate. Less air resistance means the ball moves more smoothly through the air despite its spin, resulting in diminished break.

So when you utter the familiar refrain, “Coors,” whenever a Rockie hits a mammoth home run at home, note that it’s not just that the ball travels farther in that ballpark. It’s also that breaking balls often just hang. And the hanging breaking ball at home is a big reason why the Rockies don't hit well on the road.

Why does what happens in Denver affect Rockies hitters away from Denver? Because pitchers aren’t throwing as many breaking balls when on the mound at Coors Field, meaning Rockies hitters see fewer such pitches at home and, when they’re back at sea level on the road, there are more breaking balls with [a lot] more movement.

So, back to Story.

As soon as Story signed a six-year, $140 million contract with the Red Sox last week, many in the baseball world wondered: How will he do when he’s not hitting at Coors for half the season? Was he only a great hitter because of his home ballpark all these years?

Story is the latest star among a handful who have left the hitter’s haven that is Coors Field to play for other teams at sea level -- think Matt Holliday and Story’s former teammates, DJ LeMahieu and Nolan Arenado. There are others, but we’ll stick with these three for now as we explore how Story might fare with Boston, given that Larry Walker only played two more seasons and was toward the end of his Hall of Fame career when he was traded to the Cardinals in 2004, and Troy Tulowitzki was just hurt too much to produce much of a sample in his post-Rockies career.

We'll also sprinkle in some other examples, like Dexter Fowler, Seth Smith and Chris Iannetta. Selection bias is inevitable here (what about guys who left Colorado and didn't do well at all?), and these players didn't all follow the same trajectory, to the same degree, as far as home/road splits. But there are enough similarities between them and the star trio above to make some interesting observations.

All hitters are different, but let’s see if we can get an idea of how Story might do in life after Coors, given how his predecessors did upon leaving Colorado, as well as some other changes now that he’ll be playing for the Red Sox.

Rockie road no more?

If there’s one thing we’ve seen from many hitters who have left Colorado in their prime, it’s that their road numbers improved significantly. MLB.com’s Mike Petriello has followed this phenomenon for years, and while the sample is small, if history is any guide, Story will see a pretty substantial improvement in his road numbers now that he’s with Boston.

Let’s begin by looking at Arenado, who played his first season with the Cardinals in 2021. Overall, his offensive production dipped somewhat from his peak in Colorado -- from 2015-19, he posted a 129 OPS+, and last season with St. Louis, his OPS+ was 121. When you break it down by home/road splits, there’s a stark discrepancy: His OPS at Busch Stadium was .722, 27 percent lower than his home OPS during the Rockies years, while his road OPS was .885, 12 percent higher than his road OPS while with Colorado.

In LeMahieu’s case, his road OPS was 15 percent higher from 2019-21 with the Yankees. Interestingly, his home OPS actually went up, too, from .834 with the Rockies to .882 with the Yankees (a six percent increase). It’s worth noting, though, that this includes a .663 OPS in 74 games at Yankee Stadium last season (a 21 percent home OPS decline from his Colorado years, closer to Arenado’s figure).

While Holliday’s improvement on the road was more modest -- his OPS in away games increased by six percent after leaving the Rockies (through 2016, for reasons noted below) -- part of that may be because he was already an unusually good hitter on the road for Colorado, with an .803 OPS away from Coors Field. At home, his OPS declined 14 percent from the 1.068 mark he had with the Rockies, down to .919 with the A’s and Cardinals (he finished his career with the Yankees and Rockies from 2017-18, but we're excluding that here since he was 37 years old with New York and we obviously don't want to bring Coors back into the equation in '18).

Interestingly, Smith saw the same decline in his home production after leaving Colorado in 2012: 14 percent.

Again, every hitter is different, and it’s by no means an exact science, but if we extrapolate from the aforementioned trends for Arenado, LeMahieu, Holliday and others, we could envision Story losing somewhere between 14 percent and 27 percent of his production at home, while gaining 12 percent to 15 percent on the road.

That 12 percent to 15 percent on the road is particularly interesting, because Iannetta's improvement on the road post-Coors was 12 percent from 2012-17, before he returned to Colorado. And Fowler's road improvement for the first four seasons after he left Colorado (2014-17), before his production began to significantly decline overall, was 15 percent.

If Story was to lose 14 percent to 27 percent of his home production, and gain 12 percent to 15 percent on his road production, what would that look like in 2022?

His home OPS (.972 with the Rockies) would be in the .710-.836 range. That's really wide, but we'll address that in the next section. And his road OPS (.752 with the Rockies) would be somewhere between .842 and .865.

Mi casa no es su casa

This is a good place to note the obvious about the home parks of the three former Rockies stars we examined above: they’re not all the same. Arenado went from playing his home games at Coors Field to Busch Stadium, as did Holliday after a brief stop in Oakland. And LeMahieu went from Coors to Yankee Stadium.

Neither Busch Stadium nor Yankee Stadium has been a hitter’s paradise over the past three seasons. According to Statcast’s park factors, Busch Stadium was the second-most pitcher-friendly park in the Majors from 2019-21. And while it might be counterintuitive, Yankee Stadium, short porch in right and all, was middle-of-the-pack over that period, at No. 17.

Fenway Park, Story’s new digs? Only one venue was better for hitters: Coors Field.

It’s difficult to project how Story’s bat will translate from Coors to Fenway because of the altitude in Denver. But it stands to reason that he’d have a better time than Arenado or LeMahieu had in their respective home parks last year (and do we really expect Arenado to continue to be a .722 OPS hitter at home moving forward, or LeMahieu to continue to be a .663 OPS guy in the Bronx after those first two tremendous seasons with the Yankees?).

So it isn’t unreasonable to think Story could be at the higher end of the home OPS range we came up with, which would put him around .830.

Just breathe

Story has already commented on why he thinks things will be better for him away from the altitude of the Mile High City.

“I think more so the adjustment I'd have to make is just the toll that it takes to play at altitude,” Story said at his introductory press conference Tuesday. “I'll feel a little better playing in Boston every night, just when it comes to that and the recovery aspect of it.”

He’ll also feel better because all indications are he won’t be dealing with a lingering elbow issue that caused him to struggle both at the plate and in the field in 2021. Story, uncharacteristically, was just a bit above league-average at the plate last year, with a 103 OPS+. And several of his throws from shortstop sailed wide of, or over, first base. 

A healthy story in 2022 means he can breathe a little easier -- figuratively and literally -- in Boston.

A new Story

If there’s one thing we know, things are going to be different for Story. He will no longer have the Grand Canyon for an outfield in Colorado -- now he’ll have the Green Monster 310 feet away. He’ll no longer have to adjust from altitude to sea level, except when he returns to Denver as a visitor.

There’s plenty of reason to believe he will thrive in life after Coors. We’ll see how our projection looks at the end of the season, but look for something like this from Story in 2022, taking the high end of our home OPS range (thanks to Fenway) and the midpoint of our road OPS range:

Home OPS (.972 with Rockies): .836 with Red Sox

Road OPS (.752 with Rockies): .854 with Red Sox

But who knows? There are many questions, not only about how Story's bat will play with his new club, but the glove at a new position, second base. Still, it's fun to try and come up with some ballpark predictions as to how his production might change after Coors.

One thing is certain: As Story begins his next chapter, he’ll be one of the more intriguing players to follow this season. Heinrich Gustav Magnus would probably agree.