UZR has so far, in a tiny sample, considered Flores to be an above-average defender. Even if he is not an above-average defender, every inning he plays to positive reviews narrows the band of his expected outcomes. If you thought previously that Flores was a defender between 0 and -30 UZR/150, maybe now you think he's between 0 and -20 instead.
Notice I'm not arguing here that Flores is a plus-plus-defensive shortstop. However, he is a professional baseball player who played shortstop his entire life , and he has continued to intermittently play shortstop since then. It's virtually assured, given what we already know, that Wilmer Flores would not be the worst defensive shortstop in baseball right now.
Flores can probably play a passable shortstop, especially in an organization that actually considers—I wish I were joking— an option as a backup shortstop.
The question, then, is just how bad will Flores be at shortstop, and how bad does he have to be to offset his offensive contributions? Put another way, is Flores's combination of offense and defense better than ? We've got an answer.
Flores's offense-plus-defense justifies his major league playing time
Flores doesn't have to be a great, or even good, defensive shortstop in order to be better than Ruben Tejada. As long as he's "not bad" the odds are that he will contribute enough offensively to make up the difference. But where is that line?
Luckily, the very smart () tackled a similar question in May, asking what Flores would have to bat in order to be worth two or three wins above replacement even if his defense was terrible. It's quite a mathy article, so I will summarize its findings here.
even if Wilmer Flores was a -15 UZR/150 shortstop, he would be a 3 WAR contributor if he batted .297/.346/.464. If he was a -10 UZR/150 shortstop, he could contribute 3 WAR by batting .295/.337/.446. If he was only slightly below average at -5 UZR/150, he would contribute 3 WAR by batting .270/.321/.437.
He could hit even less than that if you set the bar at 2 WAR, which would be a more productive season than any Ruben Tejada has ever turned in in his career. If you don't understand or like UZR or WAR, then forget the math for a second, it is just a common-sense proposition: The better his defense, the less he will need to hit.
It is unlikely at this point that Flores is a -15 UZR/150 or worse shortstop, which would make him twice as bad as , who for his career is only -8.8 UZR/150 out there. In fact, as another tall shortstop (Hanley is 6'2", Flores is 6'3") who is a former Top-100 prospect maligned for his defense but praised for his offense, Hanley might be an excellent comparable.
All of the evidence, from scouting to stats, says that Flores will hit in the major leagues. His career batting line in the minor leagues, despite his having being young for each level, is .292/.334/.440, which is weighed down by a bad season he had in Low-A in 2009. Not only has he hit in Triple-A Vegas, but he hit .311/.361/.494 in Double-A Binghamton in a notorious pitcher's league.
You'd have to go back to 2011 in order to find a single season where Flores did not bat .300 or better (he hit .300 over 547 at-bats in 2012, he hit .321 in 463 at-bats last year, and he's batting .323 this year). Even when discounting the inflated statistics in Vegas, batting line looks pretty similar to that of his peers—no player at Vegas has with at least 200 plate appearances has an OPS as high as Flores's.
Wilmer Flores is a top prospect, time to treat him like one
The bar is not high for Flores to be a better option at shortstop than Ruben Tejada. To do so, he'll simply have to play -10 UZR/150 defense (essentially Hanley Ramirez defense) and hit only about as well as (.283/.314/.432) or (.297/.357/.369) did last year.
But why approach this and argue from the negative? Why not be aggressive? Only the Mets would take a Top-100 Prospect and focus only on what reports say he might "someday" not be able to do. Flores has crushed the PCL as a 21- and 22-year-old among much older men. He's looked fine on defense at the major league level, and the statistics so far back that up. If given time to play,
Ray Ban 5113, I expect that Flores can easily surpass his preseason ESPN projections (.267/.309/.400) for the rest of the season. After so many years, this writer is prepared to see what we have in Wilmer Flores.
Unfortunately, it does not look like #FreeWilmer will be happening for the time being: