The Mets Freed Brandon Nimmo
No matter what else is happening in your life — no matter how dire your circumstances seem, or how far away salvation might appear — you can at least take consolation in the fact that you are, almost certainly, not a New York Met. And yet despite yet another season nearly entirely unsullied by success or inspiration of any kind, 25 blessed souls still labor on in Flushing, and one of those souls is housed in a body named Brandon Tate Nimmo.
According to a profile of the young man published in the New York Times shortly after Nimmo was selected 13th overall in the 2011 first-year player draft, young Brandon grew up in Cheyenne, Wyoming, dreaming of one day becoming a bull-rider. Instead, he became a Met. In the years that followed, Brandon Nimmo turned out to be quite good at playing baseball, as was possible but not overwhelmingly probable back in 2011, and by early this spring writers at this site were calling for him to be given quite a bit more playing time this year, in 2018, than the 215 plate appearances he was allowed in 2017.
To their credit, the Mets have mostly given Nimmo a starting outfield spot this season. To Nimmo’s credit, he’s made the most of it. On the year, for example, Nimmo is slugging .503, with an ISO of .238 and 15 home runs in 413 plate appearances. All four figures are career highs, besting both the marks Nimmo set last year and, in perfect order, also the standards he set in the year before, when he made his debut in Queens as a 23-year-old. This power is especially surprising for Nimmo because, with the exception of a stint at Triple-A that forced his original call-up back in 2016, his power numbers were never anywhere close to this good at any stop in the past. My former colleague Travis Sawchick covered this subject back in June.
The good news for Nimmo is that his power surge seems to have come along by means of changes that are wholly sustainable. Last year and in 2016, Nimmo was getting beat on sliders far more often is ideal This year, he’s among the 15-best slider hitters in the National League on a rate basis. That change has come after Nimmo moved closer to the plate this offseason, closing the swing-and-miss hole that had existed low and inside in his zone and forcing pitchers to keep hittable pitches out over and away from the plate, where he can extend his arms and drive them into the gaps, rather than roll over on them and hit weak ground balls to waiting infielders.
Nimmo has paired his adjusted stance with a newly aggressive approach at the plate that’s seen his contact rate drop across the board with — one presumes — a correspondent increase in power upon contact. Nimmo’s mean exit velocity has jumped from 88.8 mph in 2017 to 90.5 this year, moving from the 77th percentile to the 85th among hitters with 100 or more batted-ball events. Last year, 37.5% of the balls he hit left the bat at more than 95 mph. This year, over a substantially larger sample, 44.7% have. We’ve talked all year about how certain players benefit more from a switch over to a fly-ball-heavy approach than others, and Nimmo appears to be firmly in the category of those who prosper.
It is possible, of course, that 2019 will bring with it some further adjustment to Nimmo’s game that re-opens the small spot low and inside that was his vulnerability in 2016 and 2017, and thereafter necessitates a change in his game that diminishes his value in one way or another. That’s what baseball is about, after all. But Nimmo has proven that he deserves the playing time to make those adjustments. Which, when combined with the Mets’ poor team performance this year, makes it all the more curious that Austin Jackson and Jose Bautista, whose combined age is 69, are still starting on the same night with some relative frequency in New York, with either Nimmo or Michael Conforto riding the bench as a result. But these are small quibbles. For the most part, Nimmo is getting what he deserves, which is a lot.
And there is time to reap more. At the time of this writing, Nimmo has not started a ballgame for the Mets since August 16th, which is when he was hit in the finger by a Ranger Suárez fastball. Expected to return tonight, he’ll try to put the finishing touches on a season that has demonstrated, quite conclusively, that he belongs at the major-league level — and in a starting role at that. The Mets have, to their credit, given him room to grow into that role this season. It’s paid off for them, and for Nimmo. The 2018 season is a lost one for the Mets. The best they can hope for is positive development for their young players. In Nimmo, they seem to have found just that.
Rian Watt is a contributor to FanGraphs based in Seattle. His work has appeared at Vice, Baseball Prospectus, The Athletic, FiveThirtyEight, and some other places too. By day, he works with communities around the world to end homelessness.
Nice
There are too many nights when Bautista, Jackson, Reyes and random terrible vet X are all in the lineup. It’s not as if a lot of the Mets kids have come up and killed it but these lineups are painful to watch and accomplish nothing. Makes you realize so many of Terry Collins terrible decisions in years prior were probably not his decisions.
When are these guys all in the lineup for the hell of it rather than a need?
Reyes has barely been starting since Frazier’s return from DL . He occasionally spells Rosario because Mets feel a day off here or there is helpful as he continues to mentally imprint improved mechanics and approach.
Nimmo and Conforto have been regularly starting along with one of Bautista or Jackson unless you’re implying the Mets should have played with two outfielders with Bruce, Cespedes and Lagares on the shelf.
Furthermore, Nimmo’s on the DL and also lost a few days from another finger injury so off course Bautista and Jackson play.
Jackson by the way is playing well, is only 31 and lifetime .275 hitter. He could potentially be outfield option next season.
There’s no “need” to play veterans on expiring contracts, ever. There’s always someone younger, who might be worse right now, but at least has a chance to gain from the experience.
So who exactly should the Mets have played in the outfield other than Conforto/Jackson/Bautista when Nimmo/Bruce/Cespedes/Lagares was on the DL?
Kevin Kaczmarski! Anyone! I’m not suggesting it’s some big problem that Jackson and Bautista have gotten so much playing time but the mentality that says this team has any “needs” in 2018, or that playing Jackson somehow helps the 2019 team, is just silly.
um, but the Mets brought in these fossils… that’s the issue… having to rely on players who have no future with the club in what is an otherwise lost season when they should be using the time as an opportunity to play some kids.
Defaulting to veterans over kids has been an organizational problem for years. They chose to sign Jay Bruce for 3 years! rather than make an opening for Nimmo prior to this season. If not for injuries, Nimmo would still have languished on the AAA/injury shuttle purgatory this year and would have proceeded to be labeled as a ‘AAAA player’ most likely.
Asking ‘who else should they have played when w, y & z got hurt?’ is a self-fulfilling prophecy bc *they set up* this roster. I know that the general idea of bringing in JBats was bc they’ve had so much trouble hitting LHers, but at a certain point, who cares if they lose 88 or 98 games? It’s a lost season, and continuing to invest playing time in Jose Reyes and Joey Bats and other teams’ castoffs like A-Jax is nuts and counterproductive to accomplishing long term goals.
But again, when they show clearly that they don’t even know what they have in a player like Brandon Nimmo, the bar for this FO and team has to be very low. And it was not an isolated mistake on Nimmo – they repeated the very same thing with the less heralded Jeff McNeil. They had no idea what they had in him either… and let’s not get started with Turner or Murphy.
Turner and Murphy both rather large sample sizes of mediocrity with the Mets. Murphy in particular had close to 4000 PA with a 108 wRC+ with the Mets
Please name names as to who you’d like to see them play over Bautista or Austin Jackson at this point. Kevin Kacmarski is a 26 y/o with a .765 OPS in Las Vegas. Mat den Dekker is 30 himself.
When they signed Bruce in the winter, they had eyes on competing this season. They did show some foresight with regards to Nimmo in that they rejected the Pirates request for him (which I found head scratching at the time, but hey, looks like they had more of a clue than I did).
This notion that they might as well play ANYONE rather than established MLB players is not fair to the organization or the individuals that they’d call up, and is plainly unrealistic.
Fact is that they don’t have anyone who is ready to contribute respectably in the OF waiting in the wings right now, which you can certainly blame the organization for, but it doesn’t mean they should hold some kid’s feet to the fire who isn’t ready just to appease their fanbase.
They’re playing out the string, which sucks as a fan, but at least they’ve been respectable over the last few weeks and have given you some reason to consider going to the ballpark.
It makes a difference to the fan base if you don’t win at least some games. Plus it looks like they will be flipping JB for something useful. There is merit in fielding a roster that is competitive.
‘something useful’ is a relative concept. It’s either a ptbnl or cash… the latter is always ‘useful’ to the Wilpons. But seriously, do not expect the ptbnl to be of any significance.
Hard to know what they had in McNeil since he lost almost all of 2016 and most of 2017 with injuries. Seems like he moved up pretty quickly considering that.
This author only cares about some of the facts, and instead just wants to rip on the Mets as much as possible, including linking to a substance-less Deadspin article and taking asinine, tired riffs on the team.
Did…did we read the same article?
“No matter what else is happening in your life — no matter how dire your circumstances seem, or how far away salvation might appear — you can at least take consolation in the fact that you are, almost certainly, not a New York Met. ”
Oh, shut up with this nonsense. Do you start articles about the Padres, Orioles or White Sox like this?
I was thinking same thing how ridiculous that opening is – Mets bashing just to join the fray – let alone how ridiculous it is when real people have real life problems far greater than any baseball malady could produce. Somebody could be dying from cancer and comes here looking for escape and then reads this crap.
They did a similar thing with the Zack Wheeler article last Friday. I’m on this site to read interesting articles about baseball, not the same boring jokes repeated over and over again.
Yeah, the problem is not that it’s offensive or something, the problem is that it’s boring. In this, the most LOLMets of all seasons, you have to be pretty funny to make a LOLMets joke actually land. It just feels incredibly tired, like all of us fans.
The Mets are terrible, but the media is forced to report on the big city team. A writer can just ignore the Padres for a decade and no one notices.
Big city team indeed – but the over the top smack-downs cloud the fact that Mets played .500 ball in July and are 2 over this month.
This team needs to finish strong and go into the offseason with legit reason for optimism with strong, proven starting pitching plus Lugo and Gsellman in the pen, and legit young position player growth to build around – Conforto, Rosario, Nimmo and McNeil, currently age 22-27.
San Diego has weather, Baltimore’s team is horrific but. you shouldn’t get hurt there, White Sox are close enough to the Cubs to provide alternate rooting…
Mets are crap, their minors are crap, their owners are crap, they’re in an extremely expensive place to life with a much better rooting experience alternative, and they hurt their players. It’s the worst of your list for a ballplayer.
I thought it was funny, particularly: “And yet despite yet another season nearly entirely unsullied by success or inspiration of any kind, 25 blessed souls still labor on in Flushing, and one of those souls is housed in a body named Brandon Tate Nimmo.”
Nah, jokes about the Mets will always be funny, as long as the Wilpons own the team. Sorry bro ¯\_(?)_/¯
Did anybody else read the article title and think the Mets had killed or traded Brandon Nimmo?
He lives on a nice farm upstate now.
It’s a reference to “Free Johan Santana!” and similar calls by fans to MLB teams to let promising, but underutilized players, get more playing time.
For a decent amount of time, a popular rallying cry among Met fans was “Free Juan Lagares”
The only reason Nimmo got playing time was because the Mets had basically no other choice with Lagares, Cespedes, and Bruce being injured for significant periods of time. It is nice that he has had a good season, but as far as the Mets were concerned it was an accident as opposed to anything resembling a conscious decision.
And Conforto having a massive slump! It seems like years ago but we ought to maybe remember that the Mets started the season with Conforto as, of all things, their starting center fielder.
^ This. In fact, the Mets signed Jay Bruce specifically to block Brandon Nimmo.
They signed him because they needed proven, mid line up power with the uncertainty of Conforto rehabbing from serious shoulder surgery, and having no other proven power bats but Cespedes who is far too often injured.
Nimmo showed improvement in 2017 but not enough to hand him a starting job for 2018. I think Bruce was the right decision when it was made.
Nimmo’s now proven he deserves to start having proven he can work his way out of severe slump, decrease his K rate and improve defensively. I think those were his final tests.
Conforto was supposed to miss the month of April, and the response is to sign Jay Bruce to a 3 year contract…?!? And you’re suggesting that’s justifiable? LOL
The Bruce signing was misguided due to his position and their lack of a competent option in CF, but he is right in that they were signing him for his bat more than anything. The contract actually looked okay until we saw how the FA landscape shook out (which, I believe, was unprecedented and surprised some).
Yeah, I mean we basically have this perpetual Mets incompetence in large part BECAUSE the media (national & local) are too lame/weak (however you want to label them) to call them out with sufficient and appropriate outrage.
They are a terribly run organization. It took a cancer diagnosis to actually replace the head of their baseball operation, who more or less fired himself bc ownership wouldn’t do it.
When is the media going to step up and call out the Mets situation for what it is? It seems like they are going to continue to stand around while the Mets hire another stooge GM whom they can use simply to run interference as Alderson did… so that the media can #lolmets after the fact. The baseball media does seem to feed off the narrative of Mets as punchline.
They believed in him obviously refusing to trade him to get McCutchen or Harrison. Remember the Pirates wanted him and Alderson said no. Both Mets and Pirates saw the potential.
Their ‘plan’ was not to deal him, but to block his opportunity by signing Jay Bruce. Had they really believed in him, they wouldn’t have signed Bruce… can’t really have it both ways.
To Rian Watt –
Before you write, get your facts straight and carefully consider your words.
The opening to the article is an unnecessary pot shot at the Mets for effect – let alone highly offensive to people who have real life problems.
Furthermore, the title is also misleading. implying Brandon is no longer a Met or is being mistreated.
More issues – Nimmo moved closer to the plate last August – not last offseason like you claim.
As for his power surge, it never was a surprise to me knowing it was always there and just required mechanical, stance and approach adjustments to hone it, in-game. This man is a muscular, athletic 6’3″ 207 who was drafted with a power prediction and had long displayed raw power in batting practice.
Regarding playing time, it’s total nonsense claiming Conforto and Nimmo are being benched for Bautista and Jackson. with relative frequency.
ummm, ok….
The opening is fine, a running gag at the nonsense that is the Mets org. Poorly run, hurts own players, not much positive future outlook, etc… It’s a joke. Deal with it.
The title is accurate. The Mets were intentionally blocking Nimmo, and he has been freed from that through now being given playing time. IT plays again off a running gag of fans asking teams to ‘Free Johan Santana’ or whoever is good and young but blocked on a useless and bad team.
You got data on his move in August versus offseason? If so, provide it and the article might be edited. I’ve done that and it happens.
Power surge was hoped and, until there was a change, wasn’t ever going to be seen. It’s a surprise it’s happened because, using the historic data we have, Nimmo didn’t show signs of it. That’s why it is exactly as it was written.
Is it nonsense? The evidence completely suggests that. Some other teams do this too, like the Rockies with veterans over prospects in the field.
Get over it dude, sorry your favorite team is owned by dipshits and run by imbeciles.
I would love to be a New York Met. In fact, it would be better than any job available to me now lol
How does it work out that he hits the inside pitch better by moving closer to the plate? Was he always good at hitting the even-more-inside pitch?
I think the answer to this is, essentially, yes. He always had the combination of strength and bat control to handle the pitch way in on his hands (in terms of, like, not striking out on inside fastballs and not having as BIG a hole for the slider at his ankles as he did for the one out away) — and of course also the semi-intentional HBP became such a big part of his game that the umps had to call him on it several times this year.
Do we have any idea the sample size it takes Statcast stats (e.g. exit velo, launch angle, pitch RPM) to stabilize?
Nimmo appears to have had a solid year but his peripherals suggest he’s been one of the luckier players in the game this year.
.360 BABIP
.237 xBA/.265 BA
.430 xSLG/.503 SLG
.352 xwOBA/.384 wOBA
In reality, he’s proven to be a roughly average hitter and a below average defender. Still a serviceable player but I’m not so sure he’s earned unquestioned starter status yet. I mean, on the Mets, yes, but compared to the rest of the league, he still has something left to prove.
.352 xwOBA isn’t roughly average.
.337 is exactly average. Sure, .352 is higher than that but it’s not like it’s that far off base.
Huh? After doing a spit-take at this I went and checked — major-league average wOBA this year is currently .315.
I was being this on baseball savants default of players with 250+ PA.
wOBA isn’t park adjusted and xwOBA essentially is, so I’d guess some of the gap is that…
The point was that none of it looks sustainable as evidenced by the splits between x-world and reality.
Nimmo’s BAbip has been .360+ every year, .361 career. Nor is that terribly unusual in today’s game; 12 other guys are over .350 BAbip over the last 3 years with 700+ PAs, including J.D. Martinez (.366), Altuve (.360), Judge (.359), Freeman (.356), Goldschmidt (.354). But you go right ahead believing your x-crap instead of actual evidence.
Guy has been fine in the OF, especially CF where he should have been all year. But evidently Alderson made the call to have Conforto playing CF most of the year most likely to justify his Bruce signing. Jeez.
But whether or not Nimmo regresses, he’s still having a terrific season, on the way to 4 war. Thing is that he’s got room to improve. If he can improve his contact rate (cut down on his Ks), he’s going to be even more productive. The guy just has + across the board tools, which the Mets haven’t had in a long while.
i’m as disappointed with this season as any Mets fan. Yet some of the snarky(?) or overblown intros on FG lately, along with decent play since the ASB, remind me that it really could be worse. The Mets rank above 8 MLB teams, and not all of them are better equipped for the future than we are. It’s been a bad year, but I’ve enjoyed a few aspects — and Nimmo’s development is one of the brightest.
The constant, unnecessary, tired cheap shots against the Mets strongly detract from otherwise strong writing. At least try to be funny instead of going for the cliched, overdone garbage.
I wouldn’t be so quick to offer credit to the Mets for playing Nimmo. The guys in front of him on the depth chart include Yoenis Cespedes (played 38 games), Juan Lagares (played 30), and Jay Bruce (has played 65). When the guys in front of you go down then you play.
To his credit he has shown himself to be a good player who will be a part of the team’s future. But the Mets were rolling out bums like Matt denDekker with regularity as their stars were hitting the DL.
These Brandon Nimmo articles are pretty shameless. Fangraphs pegged Nimmo and Colin Moran as breakouts this season and I get that. The Nimmo articles flew when he ran into a huge power outburst, then nothing. After he got on base 6 times in a game the articles pick up again. Fangraphs is really concerned with proving themselves right, which doesn’t really seem like the best way to further research. It is certainly doesn’t come off as objective. Never mind that one reason he doesn’t play every day is the sizable platoon split – that’s irrelevant, lets go ahead and compare him to everyday players. There is literally not a single mention of anything negative. The DL stints are just missed opportunities! A former top 100 prospect, first round draft pick corner outfielder with a middling average, 20 HR and 10 SB is not any kind of a breakout performance. Sure the OBP is great, but what other players get to ignore every unflattering stat? Contrast this with the way Fangraphs analyzes Matt Kemp as they just wait for the low points. This feels a lot like politics, but that is another post. I am counting this as a time Fangraphs was wrong. We can set the bar for success anywhere we want, but it is pretty tough to sell this as a great season unless you have blinders on.
The power outburst looks like a fluke at this point. If we subtract that out, then his season looks a lot different. He hit 4 HR over 5 games, 10 were hit in one calendar month. That is not sustainable, its also what largely fuels his ISO. The .260 average with teens HRs looks like what we should expect, as that is where he has spent most of the season and his career. His season has come equally close to a flop as a success – without the fluky runs he is looking terrible. That is not any more fair than ignoring the negatives, so for me its a wash. I think it is a very average corner OF season despite select stats. Growth can always happen, but this season hasn’t been anything to get excited about unless you have a vested interest. Its not that I hate Nimmo or anything like it. It bothers me when people set the bar for success low and then gloat about it – that bothers me. Nimmo was hitting .245 prior to his last 5 games. I think we know that he isn’t an elite SB or power guy (sorry ISO) and AVG seems like a bit of a liability (although that appears the most hopeful in my view). He doesn’t do anything special other than draw walks, which plays a lot better in a simulation than it does in actual winning of baseball games.
Yeah, seems reasonable. If you don’t care about walks, and you don’t believe he’ll ever hit another home run because all the ones he did hit came too close together, this guy really sucks! In related news, sugar-free non-dairy ice cream doesn’t usually taste good, so Ben and Jerry are FRAUDS.
“If we subtract that out” is always a neat trick for “proving” whatever you want. But for those who like facts: Nimmo for the year has an elite OBP and very good SLG. He’s slugged over .500 in 4 of 5 months, including August. He’s made progress vs. LHP, actually beating the MLB average there, without being platooned at all. His raw rates are suppressed by what’s been an extreme pitcher’s park the last 2 years; on the road he’s hit .296 with .967 OPS. It’s absolutely a breakout. If you’re hung up on batting average and stolen bases, good luck following modern baseball.
You have a lower bar than I do . Time will tell whether Nimmo is a star or not, but I am sure he is not as of today. I don’t understand modern baseball myself its all so different lol
“Never mind that one reason he doesn’t play every day is the sizable platoon split”
For his career, he has a 95 wRC+ against lefties. This season, it’s 114. He has a platoon split because he, like every other lefty, hits righties better than lefties. But this isn’t a case of a player that needs to be platooned because he sucks against same-handed pitchers. He’s essentially a league-average hitter against lefties, while crushing righties.
Can you just ‘subtract out’ any segment of games that you want if it makes your point? Isn’t that confirmation bias?
Sounds like you’re going out of your way to try and knock what appears to be about a 4 win season. And knocking the moderate power when he’s a table-setter seems to miss the point. People have been expending energy on ‘what Nimmo can’t do’ for years (can’t hit lefties, can’t play CF, can’t steal bases, can’t hit for power, can’t stay on the field), but as they say, if Nimmo is all wrong, then I don’t want to be right.
Not that there’s only one way to succeed at batting, but knowing the strike zone is a huge help. Out of 285 guys with 500 PAs over the last 2 years, Nimmo’s O-swing% is 7th-lowest. Not a guaranteed path to success, but emulating Mike Trout, Mookie Betts, Joey Votto and Matt Carpenter isn’t a bad idea, either. Nimmo doesn’t compare to them in Z-contact%, so there’s room for improvement. But I’ll always bet on a guy with good discipline to repeat good results, until the evidence proves otherwise.
Using the same sample, the players I get who are most similar by o-swing, z-swing and z-contact [the three z-scores are all within 0.5 of Nimmo]
Francisco Cervelli
Russell Martin
Aaron Hicks
No bad players, per-se, but a step down from Trout, Betts, Votto, etc
Hicks, believe it or not, has become one of the best players in baseball
Nimmo has always had power, even when drafted the expectation was he would end up as a strong secondary average contributor. One of his first home runs in the big leagues was an absolute laser onto the bridge in citi field, which after reading lots of varying reports during his time in the minors, absolutely sold it for me. Checking Baseball Savant for last year you can see him ranked just below Mike Trout in terms of exit velocity and sprint speed (Trout did admittedly have a down Statcast year that year, but Nimmo has improved since then as well.) The thing with Nimmo was he was always a big, strong, and fast kid, but one who wasn’t overly athletic or balanced or who possessed stunning amounts of hand- eye coordination, so people wondered how often he would be able to dig into those. In one regard I think this actually helped him, because it forces him to really hunt for his pitches, something he has shown such a strong aptitude for it has come to define him as a hitter. There was talk of him being too passive, and when he first came up he definitely was to an extent. But its much easier to have a great eye and learn to swing a little more often than vice- versa. For a long stretch when I found myself watching Mets games he was the only hitter I would see at the plate and have confidence that the end of the at- bat would come because he got a pitch to hit. Contrast that to Rosario, who came up with the hand- eye coordination to hit just about anything, so he never honed either an eye for the strike zone or the mindset to hunt for his pitch.
if you are the type of person that wears a way-too-small super hero outfit to Walmart, I am going to guess that being a NY Met would in fact be an upgrade, but also maybe not.
Hmm, we Mets fans are a touchy bunch.
Amazing how much a couple of years changes a narrative. In 2016 the Mets were coming off a world series trip. They made the playoffs and lost a heart-breaking pitching duel between Bumgarner and Syndergaard. The Mets, Orioles, Rangers, Giants and Jays all made the playoffs, the jays even going to the ALCS. Look at ’em now.
The Mets have under-performed their projections 2 years running, but are in better shape than some of those other 2016 playoff squads, I think. Whether to tear it down or go for it again next year is always an issue. Jeff Wilpon meddling is always an issue. Bruce has had bad career stretches but he was ok last year. Cespedes is good if healthy. Frazier, too. McNeil may be something. The bullpen hasn’t been good, but that’s bullpens for you. Gsellman and Lugo at least are useful pieces. So again they could look like a mid-70s win team or mid-80s wins next year.
The near term farm has some pieces, although it isn’t loaded, but I’m starting to get excited about the really young guys. Kelenic, Vientos and Mauricio look very promising. Gimenez is only 19 in AA. Dunn has had a bounce back year. Peterson starting to come around a bit.
Nimmo has looked pretty good. Conforto starting to come around. Rosario looking better recently. It hasn’t worked out last couple of years, and ownership can use it as a crutch to not do too much, but with a top 3 of Degrom, Syndergaard and now Wheeler, a few breaks and things can look a lot better pretty quickly. of course this sounds like Seaver, Koosman and Matlack and years of mediocrity back in the ’70s. But any of those youngsters in rookie ball start to pop next year and the future brightens up again.
By the time the short season crew are ready, the trio atop the rotation will be elsewhere. The window was now while the SPing core was young and cheap. They blew it. What happened this year was not a surprise after how they handled last winter.
That’s true as far as the youngsters. They were still projected for 84 wins by fangraphs, 81 by pecota. If they had pushed that they’d have likely added at the deadline. Injuries and under-performance. And yeah, 84 wins shouldn’t be this franchise’s projection. Some bounce back and health, and adding so more pieces, and they could be right back. To mid-80s. 🙂
It’d be nice to see what Alonso could do but they aren’t bringing him up this year.
The Mets freed Nimmo the only way they know how – injury to other players
Plus, much like Frankie Lindor, he has an infectious smile and energy. It is extremely fun to watch him play.