With
New York Mets shortstop
Ruben Tejada struggling, and
Wilmer Flores back to playing shortstop in the minors
, I thought it would be a
good time to consider whether Wilmer Flores is a reasonable internal option for
the Mets. I have discussed this topic before, but it seemed an appropriate time
to touch upon the subject again, as Ruben Tejada has looked even worse than
last season – five intentional walks in 82 PA’s have boosted his OBP early, but
he’s also striking out at a higher rate than ever, with an even lower rate of
extra base hits – and Flores has been playing SS regularly for the
Las Vegas51s (see these recaps: week
1,
2,
3). Considering it is unlikely that Flores would have
improved enough in one off season to go from ‘never going to be a major league
SS’ to ‘average major league SS,’ the question I wanted to answer is how much
offense Wilmer Flores needs to provide to overcome his poor defense.
For the purpose of answering this
question, a value-based statistic like fWAR allowed me to set certain defensive
benchmarks for a given fWAR total and investigate the required offensive
production. What I really wanted to answer was not whether he could be an
upgrade over Ruben Tejada – as of now, almost anyone who is not a butcher in
the field would be an upgrade over Tejada – but whether the Mets might have the
solution to their SS problem in their own farm system. According to fangraphs,
teams have gotten, on average, a little over 2 fWAR from the SS position over
the past few seasons. While average production would still be an upgrade over
what the Mets have seen since
Jose Reyes left, they should be aiming for
above-average production from every position, which is why I have chosen to investigate a 3 fWAR benchmark for Flores. Of course, they should be aiming
for above-average defense at every position, and Flores is a long shot to ever
provide that, but, before a few months ago, it was a long shot that we’d ever
talk about Flores as a SS again.
The components of fWAR are
determined by UZR for defensive value and wOBA for hitting value. There is also
a base running measure that gets added to a players overall offensive value,
but I have assumed that to be equal to zero, which is not an unreasonable
projection for the average speed of Flores. UZR is not a perfect measure of a players defensive ability, especially over small sample sizes, but it is one of the best defensive metrics publicly available, and it is what fangraphs uses to calculate fWAR, so I am forced to use it. The graph below shows what wOBA
Wilmer Flores would need to provide as a SS given certain negative UZR/150
scores. These calculations assume 150 games at SS with 600 PA’s.
Figure 1 – Graph of wOBA v. UZR/150
for a 3 fWAR Mets shortstop.
I did not go beyond -20 UZR/150
because 1) if Wilmer is this poor of a defender, he likely isn’t sticking at
shortstop and 2) if he’s hitting this well, they’ll make room for him at 1B or
2B, though they may be discouraged from ever trying him at 2B if he’s that poor of a SS. (For the record, the -20 defender needs a .345 wOBA to reach 2 fWAR).
Also, I didn’t go above 0 UZR/150 because that is not relevant to this discussion. If he is an average or better defender at shortstop, then the
Mets should give him a long shot to see if he can hit in the majors anywhere
near as good as he has showed in the minors. Since 2009, the league average
wOBA has dropped from .329 to .314, and from .314 down to .298 for shortstops
specifically. One thing to notice is that even an average defensive shortstop
would have to hit better than league average to produce 3 fWAR. In between
those extremes are three specific benchmarks I’d like to take a closer look at:
Table 1 – Offensive production needed for fWAR total given
defensive score.
#Flores4SS
|
UZR/150
|
|
2 fWAR
|
-5 UZR/150
|
-10 UZR/150
|
-15 UZR/150
|
|
.313
|
101
|
|
.324
|
108
|
|
.334
|
116
|
|
|
3 fWAR
|
-5 UZR/150
|
-10 UZR/150
|
-15 UZR/150
|
|
.334
|
116
|
|
.345
|
124
|
|
.356
|
131
|
|
|
One more comment on the 2 fWAR requirements before I move –
they seem very reachable for a hitter of Flores reputation. Even if you don’t
think Flores will be better than a
Daniel Murphy-type at his best, Murphy at his best
produced a .354 wOBA/126 wRC+ in 2011. That was 3 year’s ago, in Murph’s age-26
season, whereas Wilmer Flores won’t be 23 until August. If nothing else, Flores
is making a case as a better possible option at 2B for the Mets moving forward,
especially considering the relative costs of the two players.
Since two very different offensive
profiles can produce the same wOBA, I wanted to tailor these wOBA’s towards the
offensive profile of the player Wilmer Flores has been in the upper minors,
which is when he ‘finally’ broke out. I also wanted to separate the rates that
are more consistently predictable – like K%/BB%/HR%/XBH% – from the biggest
variable in a players production – BABIP. With that in mind, I decided to look
at a few possible combinations of those rates for Flores, and see what BABIP
would be required to generate the necessary wOBA.
Table 2 – Wilmer’s historical rates and the wOBA produced in
the majors.
#FloreSS
|
PA
|
K%
|
BB%
|
HR%
|
XBH/PA
|
ML wOBA
|
AA
|
275
|
10.9
|
7.3
|
2.9
|
10.2
|
.368
|
AAA
|
565
|
14.3
|
5.8
|
2.8
|
10.6
|
.359
|
Minors
|
3098
|
12.8
|
5.3
|
2.1
|
8
|
.324
|
Majors
|
105
|
23.8
|
4.8
|
1.0
|
7.4
|
.241
|
The 'ML wOBA' column is what those
offensive rates would produce at the major league level in the 2013 offensive
environment (aka, using
fangraphs guts constants from 2013). AAA Las Vegas is
known as a hitter’s park, so his numbers may be inflated some there, but his AA
numbers were similarly strong. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to impress in
his sparse playing time after getting called up last season – he was limited by
injuries – but that number of PA’s is a very small sample size. I have included his 2014 minor league numbers as of May 1 in Table 2. It may be over
confident to do so, but I’m only going to consider 14% < K% <
20%, as anything over 20% seems too
high considering his minor league career total. I will also consider the
ranges: 5 %< BB% < 7%; 8% < XBH% < 10.5%; with HR% = 2.5% = 15
HR/600 PA. Given a few combinations of these rates, here are the BABIP’s that
would be required to reach 3 fWAR, and what the production looks like in more
familiar terms.
Table 3 – Various offensive outputs that produce 3 fWAR for
a -15 UZR/150 SS.
K%
|
BB%
|
XBH%
|
BABIP Req
|
AVG
|
OBP
|
SLG
|
2B/600 PA
|
14
|
6
|
9
|
.342
|
.309
|
.350
|
.458
|
39
|
14
|
7
|
10.5
|
.328
|
.297
|
.346
|
.464
|
48
|
17.5
|
6
|
9.25
|
.357
|
.308
|
.349
|
.459
|
41
|
20
|
5
|
8
|
.383
|
.318
|
.352
|
.455
|
33
|
20
|
7
|
10
|
.359
|
.299
|
.348
|
.460
|
45
|
Table 4 – Various offensive outputs that produce 3 fWAR for
a -10 UZR/150 SS.
K%
|
BB%
|
XBH%
|
BABIP Req
|
AVG
|
OBP
|
SLG
|
2B/600 PA
|
14
|
6
|
9
|
.326
|
.296
|
.338
|
.445
|
39
|
14
|
7
|
10.5
|
.312
|
.284
|
.334
|
.450
|
48
|
17.5
|
6
|
9.25
|
.340
|
.295
|
.337
|
.446
|
41
|
20
|
5
|
8
|
.366
|
.305
|
.340
|
.442
|
33
|
20
|
7
|
10
|
.342
|
.286
|
.336
|
.447
|
45
|
Table 5 – Various offensive outputs that produce 3 fWAR for
a -5 UZR/150 SS.
K%
|
BB%
|
XBH%
|
BABIP Req
|
AVG
|
OBP
|
SLG
|
2B/600 PA
|
14
|
6
|
9
|
.310
|
.282
|
.326
|
.431
|
39
|
14
|
7
|
10.5
|
.296
|
.270
|
.321
|
.437
|
48
|
17.5
|
6
|
9.25
|
.324
|
.281
|
.324
|
.433
|
41
|
20
|
5
|
8
|
.348
|
.292
|
.328
|
.429
|
33
|
20
|
7
|
10
|
.324
|
.273
|
.323
|
.434
|
45
|
While the required slash lines might not look too impressive
for the -15 UZR/150 shortstop, the BABIP required to get those slash lines
should be considered unlikely until Flores shows he will be a high BABIP
hitter, and even then some of those BABIP are improbably high for a player to
retain. The slash lines and required BABIP’s are much more reasonable for the
-10 UZR/150 player, though he’d still either have to have an ~14% K-rate or
~.340 BABIP to reach 3 fWAR. Lastly, the slash lines for the -5 UZR/150
shortstop seem very attainable for Flores – only the combination of the worst
K/BB/XBH rates requires what would be considered a high BABIP at .348.
So,
as long as Flores is better than a -10 UZR/150 shortstop, it is reasonable to
believe that he
could become a 3
fWAR/600 PA shortstop for the Mets, which would be above average. If this is the
case, the Mets should give him a multi-season look at shortstop, allowing him
time to adjust to the league and another full offseason to work on his speed,
agility, footwork and positioning at short. Also, as long as Flores is better
than a -20 UZR/150 shortstop, he should be capable of providing 2 fWAR/600 PA,
which appears to be way more than what Tejada is capable of providing at this
point. For reference,
Asdrubal Cabrera was a -17 UZR/150 shortstop for the Indians last season, and they
ran him out there for 122+ games worth of innings in 2013. Dating back to 2009,
there are 12 instances of a shortstop playing 1,000+ innings in the field with
a -10 UZR/150 or worse, with 2009
Yuniesky Betancourt the low man at -19.9 –
other offenders include
Derek Jeter,
Jason Bartlett,
Hanley Ramirez, and
Rafael Furcal.
Right
now, however, Flores is dealing with a
hand injury from Sunday’s game against
Tacoma. On top of that, Flores has not gotten off to the offensive start many
were looking for. He had an especially rough first week for the 51s, but has
been driving the ball better lately (especially the other way), and is playing
in the right league and Home Park to get out of a slump. Plus, he has shown
improved patience early on this season, and he has had an excellent eye at the
plate.
As a fan, it’s hard to watch Tejada
keep getting at-bats, especially when the rest of the lineup is struggling to
score. I’d ultimately like to see the Mets upgrade at shortstop, and I’m not
too picky about what route they go to do so. In the short term, I think the
Mets owe it to themselves to give Flores a major league chance at shortstop
when his hand heals, as the best possible outcome for the Mets is that he
proves capable there – it solves the shortstop problem, solves the problem of
where to play Flores bat, and allows the Mets to hold onto all of their
valuable assets (draft picks and other players/prospects). If he shows that he
cannot handle shortstop, then the Mets know they have to go outside of the organization
for a solution, and Flores should be no worse overall than what Tejada has been
(-0.3 fWAR on May 1). Plus, with advanced scouting and fielding
positioning, the Mets should be able
to help Flores mask the problem of his limited range (his biggest knock). Hey, a fan can dream at least, especially when the team is tied for the 3rd best record on May 1!
