Wilmer Flores has already cried upon thinking the New York Mets traded him away once. His love for the organization remains unchanged.
There’s no way around it — New York Mets fans will always love infielder Wilmer Flores.
Could it be because of all those game-winning RBI he’s accumulated during his time with the club? That helps, but it’s really because he actually cried on the field in 2015 after hearing the rumor that he’d been traded.
Fast-forward three years later, and there’s a similar situation brewing. As mentioned earlier this week, Flores’ bat is heating up at the right time, and based on his versatility with the glove, contending teams would be foolish to not at least inquire about his services.
When asked about the possibility of leaving the only organization he’s ever played for, Flores told Mike Puma of the New York Post that he still doesn’t want to go anywhere. The 26-year-old also pointed out how quickly things can change from year to year:
“Maybe we won’t make the playoffs this year, but I know in the years coming we are going to have a chance…You’re going to have a bad year. But in 2014 we had a bad year and then 2015 we had a good year and then 2016 we made the playoffs again. I know this team is going to be there again.”
It’s easy to see why Flores feels this way. The Mets signed him out of Venezuela as a 16-year-old, and this is all he’s known as a professional baseball player. After getting a taste of what success feels like in New York, nobody would blame him for wanting to try attaining it again.
Mickey Callaway had a typical response about these rumors from the manager’s perspective, which he shared with Puma:
“It’s good when you are a player and your name gets brought up, because it means you are performing and that other teams want you…It’s good motivation and it should make you feel good and give you confidence that you are performing where other teams want you and go from there. But you definitely need to hit them up every now and again to make sure their head is where it needs to be and go about your business the right way.”
That’s the right way to think about all this over the next few weeks, but it still won’t change the fact that some players don’t want to leave. The reality is someone’s going to leave, and it could be a number of them depending on how things go.
While the hypothetical sting of getting traded will hurt, getting dropped right into a playoff race should ease the pain a bit.
