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Wilmer Flores drew a comparison to Edgardo Alfonzo, the former Mets second baseman.

(Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports)

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — As a child, back home in Valencia, Venezuela, Wilmer Flores would attend Navegantes de Magallanes games, in the Venezuelan winter league. One day, when he was 10 years old, a friend took him inside the team’s clubhouse.

There, after a game, he met Edgardo Alfonzo. Flores is reasonably sure that Alfonzo does not remember the moment. At the time Alfonzo was a Mets star, a second baseman with a powerful swing. Flores was another adoring fan and for him it was "awesome."

Now the two share a clubhouse. Flores is a 22-year-old prospect in the Mets’ organization and this spring Alfonzo is an instructor with the team.

Already, Terry Collins has said that a longtime Flores watcher sees a similarity between the two. Alfonzo was a second baseman with four seasons of .800-plus OPS and a top-10 MVP finish. Flores is considered one of the Mets’ best hitting prospects. Collins has said his "bat potential (is) off the charts."

To even earn such a comparison is meaningful to Flores.

"He was a great player," Flores said. "The fact that he thinks that means a lot to me. I’m trying to get the opportunity, the chance to play."

Grapefruit League action begins today, and the Mets will try Flores at shortstop this spring. But he has not played that position in a game since 2011. Wally Backman, his manager at Triple-A Las Vegas last year and a second baseman on the Mets in the mid-1980s, has said Flores could be a "Jeff Kent-type" at second base.

But the Alfonzo comparison is not that foreign, even to the original.

"I like the way he plays because he likes to go the other way, which is what I used to do," Alfonzo said of Flores. "I think he can have a pretty good career if he stays that way. He’s nice and quiet and he listens a lot. I don’t like to compare myself or compare someone to me, but that’s good when you listen, be quiet and do the job."

Flores had modeled his game after his idol and thinks he sprays the ball to center and right field like Alfonzo used to. Alfonzo also sees a similarity in their approach at the plate and how Flores lets pitches come to him and flexes his power.

"When you go the other way you have more chance to hit for average, to stay close to the ball and get a big hit in big situations because you’re being more patient, instead of trying to pull everything," Alfonzo said. "And he looks like that. He looks like he has great patience at home plate and waits for the right pitch."

The two have worked together so far this month and Flores has used Alfonzo as a sounding board, trying to soak up any advice he can get.

When Flores is hitting, Alfonzo gives him tips. He has shown him how he used to turn double plays at second base.

Flores has not told Alfonzo about the childhood meeting but when he was called up to the Mets last season, he got a chance to meet the elder Venezuelan and told him he had been his favorite player growing up.

Alfonzo joked it made him feel old but for Flores the chance to work with an idol has real significance.

"It’s special," Flores said. "Special because of the kind of player he was and now he’s here, helping me."