2020 Diamondbacks decisions: Wilmer Flores

As the 2019 season draws to a close, with the World Series under way, the team will have to start making some decisions. Should they look to re-sign some of their impending free agents? What arbitration eligible players deserve to be tendered contracts? But the first order of business is to decide what happens to the players for whom there are team options on their 2020 services. Whenever the World Series ends, starts a five-day “quiet period.” During this time, teams have exclusive negotiating rights with their own free agents, and at the end of it, have to decide whether to pick up options on their players [They also have to decide on qualifying offers for free agents, but that won’t trouble Arizona this year]

We’ll be looking at all of these impending decisions over the coming days, starting with the team options. The first of these belongs to Wilmer Flores. There’s a $6 million team option for 2020, with a buy-out of $500K, if the team wants to let Flores walk. He was signed as a free-agent on January 21, and earned $3.75 million this year. He did only appear in 89 games, his lowest figure since 2014. This was largely due to Flores missing two months with a right foot fracture, broken after being hit by a pitch against the San Francisco Giants.

At that point, Flores was performing moderately well, batting .281 with a .725 OPS. He had started about half the games played at second-base, with Ketel Marte getting the bulk of the remainder. However, he went on a real tear when he returned. Flores’s second-half OPS was .964, which trailed only Marte (1.081) among Arizona hitters with 50+ PA after the break. A decision on whether or not to exercise the option may determine what the team decides to do with Marte. Or, conversely, what they plan to do with Marte may inform whether or not the Diamondbacks exercise the option.

There’s a poll below, in which you can vote. Of course, it’s very easy to spend someone else’s money. However, you should bear in mind that doing so will limit the flexibility Mike Hazen has to spend elsewhere. Feel free to explain your decision in the comments.