Jorge Flores – photo courtesy of James Venes, lastoftheninth.com
Flores finished with 20 doubles, 2 HR and a triple while driving in 28 and scoring 49 runs. His patience at the plate continues to be a strength, walking 10.2% of the time and striking out 13.7%. Jorge finished the year with 47 walks and 63 K’s, good for a solid 0.75 BB/K rate.
Betsided
Jorge is quick and a quality base runner, but has yet to display the ability to be a consistent threat on the base paths finishing with 10-for-21 in stolen base attempts. This is on par with his career stats. Flores only ground into 7 double plays, had 11 sacrifice hits, and 2 sacrifice flys, while getting hit 6 times. I’d like to see him crowd the plate more and push his HBP numbers up toward Tim Locastro range.
While, the bat will never be his calling card, defense and flexibility will be. In 356 games over 4 seasons, Jorge has played most of his games at SS (244GP), 2B (78GP) and more recently in OF (9GB). In 80 games at short, he posted a fielding percentage of .955, compared to his .982 fielding % in 27 GP at second. In 697.1 innings, he turned 55 double plays, managed 107 put outs and 232 assists. Watching many of his starts, Flores is ball of energy and attacks ground balls, making the routing plays. He has good range and shows off an above average arm.
Flores best months were in May and July, hitting .324 and .776 OPS and .306 and .789 OPS. He split his time between the top of the order and the bottom of the order with 26 games batting leadoff, 14 games in the 2-hole, 24 batting 8th, but mostly appeared in the 9th spot with 47 games.
Projections
With any luck the Jays will wave good-bye to Jonathan Diaz and Munenori Kawasaki, which will allow Flores a chance with Buffalo Bisons in 2016. I could see the Herds infield consisting of Flores, 3B/2B Andy Burns, and Kevin Nolan. Unfortunately, all three are eligible in this year’s Rule V draft, with Andy Burns having the highest probability of being protected or selected.
He projects as a AAAA infielder, but developing a running game would elevate him to a solid bench prospect who could fill in for short stretches.
Update: