Well, Wilmer Flores is quickly becoming a hotter prospect than those guys were back then. Owings is doing well in the majors, but Flores is outhitting both Gregorius and Franklin in the PCL this year.

Since 2012, his OPS has been at .800 or higher, and this year he's hit 11 homers in 44 games so far for Las Vegas. His bat has played at every level of the minors and he's still only 22 years old. I seriously hope the Mets don't trade him. It's only a matter of time before he becomes an offensive force at shortstop- if only the Mets would give him the chance to play every day.

Incidentally, he got a chance earlier this year, played in one game, got the flu, sat out a couple of games, then had to stay on the bench as Terry Collins had renamed Ruben Tejada as the starter. This is proof of mismanagement- the fact that Flores is in the minors and Tejada isn't.

First, he was a supposed top prospect who was constantly ranked among the top 100 in the game. Great. I was never too impressed with his numbers coming up through the minors; apparently he ranked so high because he always played at levels that were above his age range. Cool, I get it, but with that credential out of the way, he never showed any killer skills on the farm. Light-tower power? No, not really. Getting 10-15 home runs out of him doesn't seem newsworthy. Blazing speed? Anything but. A great OBP? Hardly. Killer defense? Not really. A multi-positional talent? Yes, but that'swhat we call a, uh, utility man in the majors, not a "top prospect."

So when he eventually got to the bigs, I wasn't expecting much. And, to my shock and surprise, he never lived up to expectations. He was solid, don't get me wrong, and perhaps his inability to put up at least one great season is the fault of the Mets. He never found a permanent role, constantly bouncing around the infield, and thus never had more than 483 at-bats in a season.

Did the Mets miss out? Maybe -- he did hit 18 home runs in just 336 at-bats in 2017. So perhaps he had 30 home run potential. But that was the pinnacle of his output, so perhaps it was the outlier, not the norm. What the Mets ended up with was exactly what he was in the minors -- a decent power, low speed, middling defense, low-OBP multi-positional talent. So, a consummate utility guy, on paper at least.

Don't get me wrong, I wanted the Mets to give him one full season of 150-plus games and 550-plus at-bats to show what he could really do. I wanted my mind to be changed. I wanted him to go to one position and stick, rather than having the Mets sign washed-up free agents. But that never happened.

And this might be the minority opinion, but I was not impressed by the crying scene when he was 'traded.' Come on, a little strength and stoicism goes a long way. Dude, you got traded. That's baseball. The world shouldn't stop and be your shoulder to cry on because you got moved. Lots of guys did that year -- and every year.

The game was July 29. At the time, they were a mediocre 52-49. After the game, they went 38-23 the rest of the way, en route to a 90-72 record and a historic playoff run.

Flores left an important mark on Mets history, spending six years with the club. In limited duty, he averaged 15 home runs and 53 RBI per season from 2015 to 2018. Not too shabby.

Because of his contributions to the team, he was elected in the Mets Hall of Fame project I run on another website with 75% of the vote in his eighth try on the ballot.