FORT MYERS, Fla. – In the minutes after their Wild Card series defeat last October, as members of the Boston Red Sox sat in the Yankee Stadium visitor’s clubhouse, speaking in hushed tones and ruminating on a postseason run that was over before it had even begun, one player went to speak to his manager.

“Right away. We had that conversation five minutes after the last out in New York,” Alex Cora said of Trevor Story. “He came into the office, he’s like, ‘I’m in. I ain’t going nowhere.’”

The six-year, $140 million contract Story signed in March 2022 included a club option for ’28 and an opt-out after the ’25 season. Plenty of players in his position would’ve taken the out. Though Boston’s first winning season and playoff berth since ’21 had just come to a crushing end in the Wild Card series, Story was coming off his best season in over half a decade. With his 33rd birthday a month away and a work stoppage likely when the Collective Bargaining Agreement expires at the end of the ’26 season, it would have made sense to attempt to seek a longer-term contract while his comeback season was still fresh in teams’ minds.

But Story, in part because he felt loyal to the Red Sox for sticking by him through his injuries and struggles, chose to stay.

The shortstop’s decision was particularly important because the Red Sox were about to lose fellow veteran leaders Rob Refsnyder and Alex Bregman to free agency. (Bregman opted out of the remaining two years of his three-year, $120 million contract in November.)

“Excited about him,” Cora said after watching Story take batting practice on Friday morning. “He’s night-and-day compared to (spring training) last year. Last year, he was trying to find himself. Today, there was a lot of confidence in that batting practice.”

Story reported to camp last February having played a combined 69 games over the previous two years. Offseason elbow surgery cost him nearly the entire ’23 campaign. He was healthy for the ’24 preseason, only to suffer a left-shoulder subluxation, which required another surgery, in the eighth game of the season. Originally expected to miss the remainder of the year, he returned 134 games later. But by then, the Red Sox were falling out of the postseason race.

Last season began on shaky ground, too. Story slashed .216/.260/.326 in 56 games between Opening Day and the end of May. Speculation grew that the veteran shortstop was at risk of getting benched, or worse.

“There was a game in Milwaukee,” Cora said, recalling the team’s final May road trip. “I think it was the seventh or eighth, and he bunted on his own. That’s where he was offensively.

“But we said that the god of baseball, the baseball gods, kind of like, rewarded him after that baseball play.”

From June 1 until the final game of the season, Story slashed .289/.334/.492, with 114 hits, 26 doubles, 18 home runs, 73 RBI and 22 stolen bases in 101 games. He played 157 games, matching his career-high with the 2018 Colorado Rockies. Story also set an impressive American League record by beginning the season 31-for-31 in stolen base attempts before getting caught in late September. It’s the second-longest streak to start an MLB season since 1951, when caught-stealing became an official stat in both leagues.

“He was one of the best hitters in the big leagues the last four months of the season,” Cora said. “Imagine, if he had a decent May, (we’re) talking All-Star.”

“I think May was needed,” Cora continued. “(Story) took one day off, and I don’t know what happened there, but he reset and came out swinging in Atlanta.”

Story told MassLive’s Chris Cotillo he recalls the Yankee Stadium conversation going a bit differently, but his mind was already made up.

“It wasn’t ever like, ‘Hey dude, I’m coming back, I’m opting in,’” he said. “It was more about talking about the future, and I think there was just an understanding that this is where I want to be, and he knew that. I knew.

“You’ve kinda got to play the game a little bit or whatever, but obviously, I knew.”