Next up in our projection series is Wilmer Flores. Perhaps no player was more polarizing than Flores and our individual projections are a good indication of this. Take a minute to review our original projection for Flores prior to the 2015 season. Here was our group forecast:
PA – 484
AVG – .265
OBP – .310
SLG – .400
HR – 11
RBI – 55
BABIP – .290
Here’s how Flores actually did, with the best and worst individual projections among our group.
PA – 510
Best – Hangley (502)
Worst – Kolton (302)
AVG – .263
Best – Netter (.264)
Worst – Kolton (.238)
OBP – .295
Best – Ferguson, Parker (.300)
Worst – Hangley (.337)
SLG – .408
Best – Hangley (.402)
Worst – Kolton (.332)
HR – 16
Best – Albanesius, Netter (14); Rogan, Walendin (18)
Worst – Kolton (1)
RBIs – 55
Best – Albanesius (55)
Worst – Kolton (16)
BABIP – .273
Best – Walendin (.272)
Worst – Hangley (.327)
Since our individual projections were pretty varied, we ended up with some very close projections on the individual categories. And our overall projection was a home run, too. Our projection was the best compared to the big boys. ZiPS ended up a bit too optimistic while Steamer was a tad too pessimistic.
My guess is that Flores again will see a wide range of forecasts when we do this for 2016. The good news is he showed solid power and it wouldn’t surprise me a bit to see multiple people project him for 20+ homers next season. The bad news is that he continued to show extended stretches of lousy play. Flores had a 62-game stretch in the middle of the year where he put up a .653 OPS despite a .291 BABIP.
Lucas Duda gets the rep for being streaky but that label works just as well, if not better, for Flores.
In his last 29 games of the regular season, Flores posted an .839 OPS with 5 HR in 99 PA. He hit well in both the NLDS (.817) and NLCS (.833) before a brutal World Series, where he had just one hit and a .259 OPS.
Bottom line is that Flores got 510 PA and it’s still not clear if the team should utilize him as the starting shortstop or not. On one hand he’s a potential 20-homer guy who’s not a sieve defensively. On the other hand, he’s a guy who you hold your breath each time the ball is hit to him and if he’s not delivering homers, he’s not helping.
There’s more reason to think he can do the job now than there was this time last year, when Sandy Alderson turned down an offer of Eduardo Escobar for Dillon Gee. Smart money should be on Flores getting the majority of starts early on, with the idea of re-visiting the position at the All-Star break and/or the trade deadline.
I guess officially i have to eat crow. I predicted .230/.280/.340 9 HRs and he was better than that, but it still wasn’t better than Tejada, since both finished with about a 95 OPS+ and wRC.
I would double down my bet next year and say he won’t eclipse 10 HRs. I don’t think he has HR power and relies on luck to run into one and it’s not uncommon for people to “have” it one year and disappear the next. Simmons comes to mind when he hit 17 HRs in his sophomore campaign and has barely hit half that amount in the next 2 seasons combined
He can’t field at SS, and UZR numbers finally started catching on late. If the season were to have continued to play out, we would have seen a bigger plummet in his numbers.
I did some tracking in this post : https://mets360.com/?p=25926
At around 443 innings, he was at -0.8 UZR
At around 600 innings, he was up to 1 UZR
About a month after that he was down to 0.3 UZR
And the at the end of the season he was at 835 innings and -2.5 UZR
That means in the final 235 innings, his UZR/150 rate was about -20.
I’m not sure why you said smart money would be Flores getting the starts early on. He was replaced by Tejada as the starter at the end of the season, but maybe everyone forgot that because he got hurt early and Flores had to step in.
Like Lagares last year, this was probably a career year for Flores. The smart money would be trying to sell high (relatively speaking since he has little value anyways) before he puts up stinky numbers next year.
The Mets became a playoff team with a player that management thought could not play shortstop (Flores) in the minors and backed him up with a player Tejada) that had failed twice in the majors in the past when counted on. Then it was compounded with a second baseman (Murphy) that is defensively challenged.
Flores performed as many expected with slightly more power. He is a slightly below average offensive SS and a defensively poor SS with a Rdrs/yr of -15 at the position. The fact that the Mets went as far as they did will encourage the front office to have a 2016 Flojada encore when a upgrade is needed and would be prudent.
I like Flores’ mentality and bat, but I’m not enamored by his defense. Maybe the best option is to play him at second or third and use him at shortstop only as a backup?
I fear an offense that relies on the streakiness of Flores, Duda and Lagares. One would be easy to deal with, two would be hard, three is almost impossible.