Nobody wanted to see Wilmer Flores succeed at shortstop more than I did. I spent the majority of this offseason urging whoever would listen that we needed to see if Flores could work at shortstop before completely abandoning the idea. If it worked, the payoff would have been huge.
Unfortunately, as the season nears the first-quarter pole, the realization that this experiment has been an abysmal failure is tough to ignore.
Nobody doubts that Flores has unlimited offensive potential. His team leading five home runs is evidence enough that his power is legit, but at what cost?
Take Thursday’s 5-4 loss to the Cubs as a glaring example. Yes, Flores contributed to the Mets tally with his solo homer.
But on the flipside, his eighth error of the season proved back-breaking and led to a pair of unearned runs for the Cubs.
The end result was a disparaging loss and a demoralizing sweep in the Windy City. Flores is on pace for a franchise record 40 errors this season.
Losers of 12 of their last 19 games, if not now then when will the Mets finally take action and make a change?
“Look, we’re not naïve,” Terry Collins said about Flores after the game. “We’ll sit down and continue to discuss it, and if people say, ‘We’ve gotta make a change,’ then we’ll make a change.”
There are no easy answers.
Internally, you could run Ruben Tejada out there and hope his bat won’t peter out the way it usually does when he gets regular playing time. But honestly, is that something we really want to chance, knowing he’s had the job and lost it three times in three years?
You could bring up Matt Reynolds, but for some reason the Mets have been very reluctant to do that. I was surprised at something Sandy Alderson said before the season when asked if Reynolds could be an option at shortstop. “He needs to go to Triple-A and do what he did again.” It’s as if Sandy didn’t put much stock in last year’s breakthrough season.
Whatever the case may be, he’s ours, he plays shortstop adequately, and he deserves a shot to prove or disprove his viability as an option.
Unless something changes, for now the Mets are limited to a shortstop in Flores who can hit but not field, and vice versa with Tejada.
My biggest gripe with the Mets offseason is that they failed to secure a contingency plan in case the Flores experiment failed.
That’s all on the Baseball Maverick.
Alderson is the one that gets paid the big bucks to ensure the Mets didn’t get caught flat-footed in a season that by his words was “the one.”
A season that he said was not being challenged to win 90 games, but that “now 90 Wins is an expectation.”
Alderson resisted any and all opportunities to upgrade or even backup the shortstop position, even though he knew the risks involved with handing the job unchallenged to Wilmer Flores.
He was reluctant to spend any money to upgrade via free agency and had zero desire to deal from his pitching wealth to pull off a trade.
So Baseball Maverick, it’s your move now.
We need you to revive and revitalize the shortstop position as famously as you revived and revitalized the franchise. The ball’s in your court now and the swing sign is on.
