For the last year and a half Met fans have been speculating about the future of the shortstop position ever since the failed Ruben Tejada experiment. Mets GM Sandy Alderson has been able to stay level headed throughout the process and stick with what he feels will be best for the team and its future despite the heavy critisicm.
That plan was to stay home grown and give Wilmer Flores a crack at the every day gig at shortstop. A plan that has seemed like an absolute roller coaster since day one.
Flores was unable to quiet the critics for the first month of the season playing an atrocious defense. Through May 15th Flores had only converted on 92.2 percent of routine plays, second worst among active shortstops. He had made eight errors up to that point only better than four other shotstops in the league.
No one said that becoming a starter in the biggest sports market in the world was going to be an easy task but Flores seemed to be taking it to a brand new level at his new everyday position and Mets fans were clearly getting sick of waiting for Flores to come around.
After an impeccable 13-3 start to the season the Mets dropped 12 of their next 19 contests with the main issue being the offense. During that stretch Flores hit a whooping .174 nothing even close to being worthy enough to back his defensive miscues.
Terry Collins and company though would continue to give their faith and support to the 23 year old despite being heavily criticized by the fans and media. That patience and faith has been questioned for a while now but we are slowly but surely starting to see it pay off.
Seeing Citi Field praise Wilmer Flores for a job well done on Tuesday night was a rare sight from the Mets faithful. Flores had just delivered two huge at-bats in a row to bail out a terrible 8th inning for the Mets bullpen.
It may be hard to believe but as the month of May comes to a close and we head into the long summer months, the Mets are starting to believe they have found themselves a permanent shortstop. Hard to believe after seeing thenumbers Flores put up the first month of the season, huh? He was and still is a work in process, a process beginning to finally pay off.
Over the last two weeks Flores has been able to find a groove at the plate. Fans are seeing much better at-bats, a lot more patience, and a much more relaxed Wilmer Flores. He has been a home run machine as well, now sitting atop of the home run category for all National League shortstops including a clutch home run in game one of the Mets/Phillies series on Monday to propel New York to a victory.
We also saw the clutch gene out of Flores on Tuesday when he came to bat with the Mets trailing 4-3 in the bottom of the eighth and two runners in scoring position.
Flores had probably his best at-bat of the season fighting off pitch after pitch from Phillies reliever Ken Giles who is having an exceptional season. Flores would eventually punch a fly ball into right field to drive in the tying run.
He would continue his late game heroics in the 10th driving in Juan Lagares from third with a two out single for the Mets second walk-off win of the season and the second of Flores young career. Las Vegas 51’s manager Wally Backman has praised the clutch gene of Flores something we are starting to see at the big league level.
The 23-year old Flores is never going to be a Jose Reyes or Andrelton Simmons with the glove, but with every successful throw we are starting to see a sense of comfort from Flores. He has been much more relaxed at the new position. He made a great play in the loss to Pittsburgh on Sunday something that was lost because of the performance by the rest of the team.
He is far from a finished product. Flores is growing on Met fans everywhere something I never thought I would see a month ago. Flores has gotten his average up to .252 with a team leading seven home runs and is now on pace to hit .275 with 20-25 home runs and I will take that all day.
Wilmer Flores is still extremely young and has been able to block out all the doubters. Since day one of spring training, Flores was told he wouldn’t be able to do it, he could not succeed as the every day shortstop of the New York Mets. However the Mets were able to work through the early season struggles, as was Flores. It’s time to give the kid a break and let him continue to find himself. He has only been getting better and it should continue to improve going forward with even more reps and his growing confidence.
