For all my bluster about being sick of the incessant charting of prospects years away from the Majors, I spend a lot of time doing exactly that.

And I figured it’s worth noting that though two of the Mets’ most well-regarded prospects coming into the season endured rough seasons in the Florida State League, their numbers appear worse than they actually are.

Wilmer Flores posted a .269/.309/.380 line for St. Lucie. But because that league and that park are particularly rough on hitters, his numbers translate to similar stats in Double-A Binghamton according to the Minor League Equivalency Calculator: .273/.307/.380. Presumably if he was putting up those still-unspectacular numbers as a 19-year-old in Double-A, no one would be ready to call him a bust yet.

Something similar goes for Cesar Puello. Puello hit merely .259/.313/.370 in St. Lucie after a breakout 2010 season in Savannah. Puello’s line translates to an underwhelming .262/.289/.396 at Binghamton, more palatable for a 20-year-old player. Most alarming for Puello is a sharp decline in walks from 2010 to 2011, though that is perhaps a trade-off made in pursuit of better power numbers.

Of course, the obvious corollary is that impressive performances from pitchers Darin Gorski and Zack Wheeler need also be taken with several grains of salt.

Naturally all the players involved still have a lot of development in their future, but I imagine we’ll see tons of Mets prospects lists this offseason that fail to factor in the effects of the unfavorable hitting environment in the Florida State League. So consider this when you read those.