Mets infielder Wilmer Flores began his pro career as a shortstop before his lack of mobility at the position forced the team to move him around the infield.
Well, Mets general manager Sandy Alderson said if Flores' offseason conditioning program pays the type of dividends they hope, then Flores could get some reps at shortstop this spring, per MLB.com.
"I don’t think we’d rule it out," Alderson said in a telephone interview. "Why should we? I think we have to see how spring training plays out for him -- is there going to be a spot for him in the lineup? Is there not? Is he going to be a bench player for us? Is he going to go to Las Vegas?"
Flores spent the offseason going through a team-supervised conditioning program instead of playing winter ball in Venezuela. The team wanted Flores to focus on his overall health.
"It became clear, if you watched him play last year and run the bases … that [conditioning] was an area that needed to improve," Alderson said. "Since he’d never done any conditioning at all, you say to yourself, ‘Gee, there may be substantial opportunity for improvement. Let’s see what happens. Let’s try it.’ And that’s what we’ve done. We won’t know the benefits of that until we get down to spring training.
"I wouldn’t say [Flores to shortstop] is dead. I think that one of the things we want to see is how well he has done with his training regimen in Michigan."