Last year, it was rough at times watching Wilmer Flores play shortstop. He didn’t look quite natural. He had trouble turning the double play. Worse yet, he seemingly took these struggles to the plate.

For a variety of reasons, Flores was thrust out of his role as the starting shortstop. The Mets handed the job back to Ruben Tejada, who at least looked the part. Tejada was steadier. He looked more fluid. And yet, Tejada was actually worse than Flores at shortstop. While Flores had a – 2.5 UZR and -10 DRS, Tejada had a -5.6 UZR and a -15 DRS. It’s surprising to see that Tejada was that much worse because he really did look better at shortstop. A big part of that was shortstop was his natural position, and he was more comfortable out there.

After the 2015 NL Pennant winning season was over, the Mets sought to upgrade their shortstop position. They wanted to put both Flores and Tejada on the bench. The ultimately released Tejada. In their stead, they added Asdrubal Cabrera.

Through the Mets first 14 games, Cabrera has looked good at shortstop. Unlike Flores, he is a natural shortstop. He’s comfortable turning the double play. He makes the routine plays with ease. When using the eye test, Cabrera has been nothing short of a revelation.

According to the stats, he hasn’t been. So far this year, Cabrera has a -1.1 UZR and a -2 DRS. To be fair, this is too short a sample size to make any judgments. However, this is indicative of Cabrera’s abilities at short. Last year, he had a -6.0 UZR and a -8 DRS. The prior year he had a -6.6 UZR and a -7 DRS. Despite how he looks, Cabrera isn’t a good shortstop.

In reality, Cabrera was brought here to hit. The Mets wanted the pop in his bat. In the second half last year, he hit .328/.372/.544 with 10 homeruns and 36 RBI. So far this year, he’s hit .314/.364/.392. Those numbers would be higher if he didn’t have a homerun taken away on replay in Philadelphia. In sum, Cabrera has been a positive addition to the Mets thus far. He’s been exactly what the Mets thought they were getting.

A steady shortstop with poor range who hits the ball well.