The book on Rockies rookie star Trevor Story

Colorado Rockies shortstop Trevor Story continues to provide one of the best early narratives of the season. The 23-year-old may no longer be hitting a home run per game, but his .294/.327/.804 slash line continues to be impressive. On top of that, the Rockies have gotten out to a decent start, going 7-5 in their first 12 games.

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Problem is, it’s pretty early. No one expects the Rockies, or Story, to keep up the pace. Once Story starts to regress, he could take the Rockies with him. The Rockies hope Story will continue his hot streak as the Rockies take on the Cincinnati Reds in Yahoo Sports’ Free MLB Game of the Day on Monday (7:10 p.m. ET). A stream of the contest will be available at sports.yahoo.com/videos.

Saying Story’s numbers are unsustainable isn’t a sleight against his ability as a player. It’s just that it’s impossible for any player to keep up his current pace.

That said, it’s not as if Story has gotten completely lucky during his current hot streak. Sure, his numbers won’t remain this high, but some of his stats are impressive. During his first 12 games in the majors, Story has posted a 38.9 home run per fly ball rate (meaning nearly 40 percent of his fly balls have left the park), he also has a 62.1 fly ball rate and a 55.2 percent hard hit rate.

Let’s focus on the positives first. Those are precisely the type of crazy figures you would expect from a guy leading the majors in home runs 12 games into the season. Story is not only hitting a ton of balls in the air, but he’s hitting them exceptionally hard. Logically, it makes sense that a guy with those skills would have a ridiculous home run rate. Too often, we write off hot streaks to luck, and while luck is involved here, it’s worth noting that Story has also been exceptionally good at the plate during his period.

(AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh) Now, the negatives. Those three stats above would have led the majors last season. No hitter last year posted a higher home run rate, fly ball rate and hard hit rate higher than Story’s current figures. So, yeah, regression is going to come.

The real question is whether Story can remain a useful player once this current hot streak ends. Dave Cameron of FanGraphs recently used projections to find a comparable player to Story, and came up with Detroit Tigers slugger J.D. Martinez.

There’s some validity to that statement. Martinez isn’t a big walker, though he’s improved in that area, and he strikes out at a high rate. While those wouldn’t normally be a good combination, Martinez hits the ball exceptionally hard (he led the league last season with a 42.8 hard hit rate), and puts the ball in the air at a high rate. That’s exactly what Story has done thus far.

[D-Backs pitcher Shelby Miller is the clubhouse leader for strangest injury suffered thus far]

Martinez has built up enough good will over the past two seasons that we can say that’s a part of his skill set. With Story, we don’t know that yet. It’s really tough to predict whether he’ll continue to make hard contact at a high rate.

One thing he should continue doing is putting the ball in the air. Jeff Sullivan of FanGraphs noticed that as Story has moved up the minor-league ladder, he’s become more of an extreme fly ball hitter. The usual small sample caveats apply, but that aspect of his game appears to have carried over into the majors thus far. Being an extreme fly ball hitter in Coors Field doesn’t seem like the worst thing in the world.

That said, remember the whole high strikeout rate thing? That’s where some of the optimism about Story’s current performance ends. While Martinez has been successful with a high strikeout rate, he struck out in 27.1 percent of his plate appearances last season. That tied for the ninth-highest rate in the league.

(Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images) In his 55 plate appearances, Story has struck out in 40 percent of them. That’s extreme. And while that could drop, keep in mind Story has always posted high strikeout rates in the minors. This was a big concern with him coming into the year. He’s probably going to strike out a ton, and that’s likely going to impact his batting average.

In the end, it might not matter. The bar for being a useful offensive shortstop in today’s environment is incredibly low. Shortstops combined to hit just .256/.307/.375 last season according to FanGraphs. Maybe Story’s average will be slightly lower based on his high amount of whiffs, but he might be able to post a similar on-base percentage and should slug better than that. Add in solid defense, and suddenly you have a pretty useful shortstop.

[The sun got the best of Indians outfielder Rajai Davis multiple times Sunday]

Based on his strikeouts, Story probably isn’t an MVP candidate going forward. But there are skills in his game that indicate he can be the type of guy who succeeds despite a low average. The power and the fly ball rate seem legitimate right now. If he can hit the ball with authority at a high rate, he could be a special offensive player. If not, he’s probably still good enough to be above average at shortstop.

For a team in Colorado’s current position, either outcome would be tremendous.

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