The New York Mets (18-10) have gotten back into their winning ways with a sweep of the Baltimore Orioles in the rare two-game series. As they travel to Philadelphia to face off with the lowly Phillies, the Mets are far from bulletproof sitting at the top of the NL East.
After riding an 11 game win streak, they dropped seven out of ten going into the series against Baltimore. Those games began to show the weakness the Mets have: infield defense. This is a weakness the fans, the media and even Mets management themselves have been concerned with.
The Mets answer was to ride the wave of Wilmer Flores hoping that his bat will distract everyone while his bad fielding catches up to the MLB level. It hasn’t. In fact, neither one has been successful to this point.He holds the team lead for errors with seven. He looks lost at times in the field.
If this wasn’t bad enough, his hot bat that was so readily on display at the end of last season has completely cooled off to begin the 2015 campaign. He is batting .235 with 18 strikeouts in his 81 at bats. On top of that, he holds a lowly .279 OBP as he struggles to get on base. His strikeout/walk ratio (18/3) is the complete opposite of what his expected production was. He’s not showing patience or any level of comfort at the plate.
Flores needs a change. He needs to be able to step away from the spotlight that is a pennant race in New York, if even for a little while. He needs time to figure it out again. He’s clearly talented but he’s lost his grip on what brought him to the Mets in the first place.
A stint in Las Vegas would possibly do the trick. It would accomplish two things: it gives him a chance to play everyday with working on his swing and his defense and it will build his confidence back up to where the team needs it to be.
The larger question would be who would replace him in the lineup. It’s completely out of the question to consider Ruben Tejada as an option at this point. His AVG (.167) is even lower than Flores’. While his glove is a bit better in fewer chances this season, he’s not Rey Ordonez. The Mets can’t afford to have a no hitting shortstop with a half-decent glove. He’s serviceable in late innings for defense but not for everyday starts.
What’s the option then? Perhaps it’s time to call up Matt Reynolds. Reynolds is hitting the stitches off of the ball in Las Vegas and has a solid glove to boot. He currently leads the Mets Minor League system in RBI with 25. That RBI total incidentally, is ranked fifth among all AAA hitters.
He’s hitting at a .327 AVG currently at the level that’s just below the Majors. He’s a career .286 batter that’s hitting .some 40 points higher this season against MLB caliber pitching. That’s a sure sign that he’s learned how to hit.
While it’s uncertain how his talents would translate to the Major League level, it is certain that he can’t be much worse than what the Mets are already seeing between the combination of Flores and Tejada. In addition, a new bat could bring another spark to an offense that has been playing a bit sluggish over the past week or so.
Overall, Matt Reynolds has been the hottest hitter in the Mets system and deserves a chance to show if he is more capable than the stumbling Wilmer Flores and offensively challenged Ruben Tejada. If strength up the middle is truly what helps wins championships, the Mets will not be able to do that with Wilmer Flores as he currently is playing.
They could, however, reach that pinnacle with Matt Reynolds.
I am inclined to give Flores two more weeks of rope to get back in the swing of hitting. Matt Reynolds might be the answer but my gut tells me that Flores is still the better hitter.
Frank, we all pinned our hopes on Flores just making the routine play. He was never a big error guy, so if he was serviceable, we’d be happy. As an adamant Flores supporter what bothers me are the sidearm throws. What’s up with that Wilmer? Can we cut that out or are you just too cool?
Look the ball into your glove, throw over the top, keep working on turning two: Things will be fine.
I usually come to this sight to get a fresh view or opinion on the current state of the Mets but it seems that you too my friend are becoming amongst the crazed fans that wants change as soon as they have a few bad games. The baseball season is a Marathon not a sprint and you certainly can not consider this a pennant race after 28 games. That in itself is crazy.
Besides that, shuffling of the roster isn’t like a video game. Sending players up and down has consequences not just upside. Players lose options as well as confidence when they are told to go back for more work after you have worked so hard through the years to make it and consider yourself a Major leaguer . It’s a blow to already fragile egos. You can’t just expect that sending Flores to Vegas is going to help him and the Mets especially when your initial option is Ruben Tejada. That would be the same as Flores failing to hold his spot at SS and giving the job to Reynolds only to give it back to Flores in 2016 for brief stints if and when Reynolds struggles
Flores is not to blame for the Mets brief struggles. It’s the overall lack of offense. A few more runs or even some clutch hitting and most wouldn’t even be having this conversation
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Totally agree. People are killing Flo because as soon as we lose a few games everyone goes in to alarmist mode. He’ll be fine and his bat will definitely come around.
It is stupid articles like this, and the booing from the fans, that force the change suggested. Why do players go to St. Louis and produce when that player may have not had success in one of the eastern “boo-bird” cities? They let players play and get off their GD backs!!
Thank you for being a voice of reason. It seems some posters don’t realize that the majors are not easy. It takes time to adapt.
This is Flores’ fifth stint in the majors over three seasons. He’s played in 73 of the last 81 games the Mets have played. Just how long do you think we should give him to adjust?
The first time he hurt his ankle after a great first week. The second time Collins wouldn’t play him. The third time, Alderson had to lean on Collins and promise him a night at Chuck E. Cheese to get Flores in the lineup. I think this is the fourth time, right?
That wouldn’t have worked – he had to promise Terry a night out with the Senior Special at the Western Sizzler.
Yes!
He didn’t get to a play that looked pretty “short stop routine”…he made several routine plays look very hard, including the easy, high chop to his left that turned into a gumby stretch from Duda.
He needs to hit Bazillion to offset the D…he doesn’t look like that kind of hitter!
A pointless position to argue because Flores does not have any options remaining.
There are many, many “good players” with a single MLB tool, or several marginal tools. I’m guessing that Flores, at best, will profile similar to a guy like Justin Turner… an ok bat without the horsepower to play a Corner or the Glove/Range to play the middle every day. If he hits well enough, he’s a 350 ab 4 position IF sub— he could build a career, and maybe even find himself a larger spot as a 3b or 2b— He is not a SS.
If the Mets give up on Flores then he will be put on waivers and someone will take him as a utility infielder or third baseman. If the Mets make him their backup utility infielder then they will expose Tejada to waivers and probably lose their only major league experienced SS to waivers. Flores is better than Tejada. Flores would thrive as a hitter in Colorado. Sandy really needs to bring in Castro or Tulo. Not in a panic mode but more because Flores should never have been put in this position. He never was considered a long term solution. A real defensive proven SS that contributes to the offense would solidify the team. Turning to Reynolds, who deserves a chance, makes me uncomfortabe in a pennant race. The sooner that Sandy makes the trade the better the odds of staying in first place.
Leave Wilmer alone. He’s under constant scrutiny and is constantly looking over his shoulder after being hounded by the press after every miscue. No matter how confident you are, that kind of pressure takes a toll on you. If you leave him alone for two months, he’ll be fine. If he knows the job is his and doesn’t have to worry about losing the job to Tejada or Reynolds, his bat will heat up and he’ll make *most* of the routine plays.
I think it’s a little different being ready to abandon an experiment that probably never should have happened compared to some kind of decent idea. Since very early in his minor league career all the evaluators in the Mets system insisted that Flores could never play an acceptable shortstop at the major league level. Then because Tejada couldn’t hit a lick and no reasonable alternatives were around the team, out of desperation in my opinion, put Wilmer at SS.
It should not have happened. Either Matt Reynolds should be given a chance at the job or Alderson must finally find an acceptable shortstop in trade. Personally I still would like to see what the cost would be to bring in Brad Miller. But I know we all have our favorites.
An interesting side part of the discussion is that while Flores is likely the wrong man for the SS job I think he can be a major leaguer of some sort. Perhaps like Daniel Murphy his future is as a part-time 1bman, 2bman, 3bman, and DH. With Flores I suppose he could be some team’s third option at shortstop.
If Dilson Herrera did not look so promising I would have been comfortable advocating a trade of Dillon Gee + Daniel Murphy for a shortstop with Flores sliding over to secondbase.
People seem to forget that Alderson spent the winter trying to deal for a shortstop. Casey Stern interviewed SA, who disclosed 8 possible transactions he attempted to make in some form or other. THe long and short of it is that Flores is not now, nor will he ever be, a regular every day MLB shortstop. He would need to hit like Tulo to offset the fact his defense is deplorable. and, like Gus mentioned, its every aspect of defense. His feet are slow to the ball, and slow to set, which he needs to do to make any kind of throw. His arm is terrible suspect, as can be see by the number of throwing errors he has. It looks as if the distance to first from short is simply too far, unless he airmails one into the dugout. He has glove issues as well. all things considered, they are hoping to catch lightning in a bottle. It wont happen.
I dont pretend to know the answer. I liked what I saw of Reynolds, but unsure whether it translates to big league ball. Trades look to be tough to arrange. In the recent ESPN (?) on 5 SS the Mets could use, I didnt like the look of how any of them would go down. But I see a utility guy in Flores. By the way, has anyone seen what Justin Turner is doing? Hes yet another ex-Met that left town only to find much greener pastures. Maybe theres something foul in the water at CitiField?
Re: Turner. Wow. Seriously. I mean, it’s gotta be because he’s surrounded by that Dodger offense, right? Ha. Oh man.
It’s easy to pick on Wilmer because of the defense, but I mean it’s not like anyone besides Lagares and Duda (and Wright and d’Arnaud) have been worth a damn on offense this year. I’ve been a big Flores supporter and I still am, so I think they should give him more time. Obviously they can’t throw him out there if it becomes too much of a problem for too long.
As far as Tejada, he had the job and played himself out of it.
Flores has definite issues with defense, but he’s still tied for the team lead in home runs. There is little to zero chance we find a replacement player who will produce that sort of power while providing much better defense. Because if there were someone out there like that, we’d have to give up too much to get him.