Serving as a Mets role player last year, not playing every day, “was one of the hardest things I had to go through,” Wilmer Flores said Tuesday.
Because he’s set to be the same sort of player, he will just have to go through it again.
“I made the adjustment I had to make, and this year, I’ll do the same thing,” Flores said at the Thurman Munson Awards Dinner to benefit the AHRC New York City Foundation in Midtown. “If I’m out there every day, I’ll take it. If not, I’ll make the adjustment.”
In playing sporadically, Flores said, “Your timing’s not there. That’s the key. If your timing’s not there, it’s tough.”
To address that, he said, “The only thing I did was more reps. That’s it. At the time when I started playing more, that helped.”
Flores experienced something else he didn’t enjoy last week, when he went against the Mets, and prevailed, in an arbitration hearing. Flores will make $2.2 million this season. The Mets contended Flores should make $1.8 million.
“Definitely it’s one of the hardest things I had to go through,” Flores said. “It was tough, but we felt confident about it, and we won it.”
Asked if it was hard to hear the Mets argue why he didn’t deserve his desired salary, Flores said, “It was easy.”
When asked if it was easy because he won the case, Flores smiled and replied, “Yeah.”
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