Brandon Nimmo is not a household name. His Twitter account @You_Found_Nimmo doesn’t have millions of followers. And in his first call-up to Double-A, he struggled by hitting .238 with a decent .338 OBP. Nothing special, right? So why is it that passionate Mets fans hate a move to bring in 36-year-old right fielder Michael Cuddyer, when Nimmo is still seemingly a few years away?
Cuddyer, while missing most of last season due to a strained left hamstring and a fracture in his left shoulder socket, still hit .332/.376/.579 in the 49 games he did contribute. This came after Cuddyer had come out of nowhere to win the National League Batting Title the year before. His .279 career average is much closer to what many Mets fans foresee us receiving, and that’s a hopeful estimate to a good deal of those same onlookers. There’s the Coors to Citi crowd as well, who project even larger drops in production. There is a chance that the injuries of last season were just freak accidents, as the man himself has mentioned. A valuable offensive, middle of the order bat might be possible, then. Many do not agree. Ultimately, we just won’t know what we have with Cuddyer until we see it.
There is a flipside to that coin. There are some elements to Nimmo’s game that suggest he could be due for an eye-opening season. While he couldn’t handle every pitch at the higher level last year, his ISO% actually went up, and he hit more home runs in Double-A than he did in St. Lucie. Binghamton is an offense-creating ballpark, but at least Nimmo was driving the ball when he did hit it. His 12.9 BB% is below average for what he’s done so far in his young career; it was almost at 18% earlier in A+ ball. For comparison, the last time David Wright had better than a 12.9 BB% was in 2007. So he’s got a heck of an eye, even when he’s not lighting up the plate.
That’s a wonderful base to have a player start off with. Add in Nimmo’s nature physical abilities regarding speed and his solid fielding so far, and he could be a very capable outfielder for the Mets in the near future. But the story doesn’t end with his progress through the minors. The Mets are starved for offense, for relevance, and for a young bat to call their own. Pitching alone can’t win ballgames, and if the Mets are going to be competitive for the next few seasons and beyond, they will absolutely need young position players like Nimmo, Travis d’Arnaud and Juan Lagares to remain offensively productive.
But Nimmo is far from a sure thing. Up until this past year Nimmo was Exhibit #1 for Sandy Aldeson’s failures as a General Manager in drafting ability. The fruits of patience occasionally do payoff, and it looks like Nimmo is developing into, at the very least, a practical option. Behind him is Michael Conforto, a polished college hitter who could meet or beat Nimmo to the Show. As every baseball fan is aware, prospects are never a given. It is conceivably possible that neither Nimmo or Conforto are ready to be an everyday outfielder for the Mets until mid/late 2016, right when Cuddyer is about to become a free-agent. The two can then fight it out over who get a starting job moving forward.
It’s a long-term game and it’s not very appealing for everyday fans who have to sit through two years of an aging player they aren’t crazy about having on the roster. Alderson, for better or worse, is at least leading the Mets out of a pretty dark hole that they’ve been in for nearly a decade. One could argue that it’s not fast enough, or that there have been large mistakes along the way, but Nimmo represents what could go right. He was Alderson’s first draft pick, and if he pans out, it means a small amount of good will toward the front office, a place so blasted with unhappiness these past several years it brings about images of Mordor.
If Nimmo doesn’t succeed the Mets have hope in Conforto, Wuilmer Becerra or a possible trade from their pitching depth. Some are going to succeed, and some will falter. Failure is a part of life, and especially baseball. When failure is guaranteed 70% or more of the time, you’re fighting an uphill battle. The Mets are kind of emblematic of that. They have to start getting better, or risk losing their fanbase almost completely. Their financial worries and leadership pitfalls have received national attention, and the old Family Guy joke still rings true.
2015 claims to be different, but many fans aren’t buying it quite yet. The pieces don’t seem to fit the puzzle just right, and the picture is hard to make out. It’s coming together at least. If Nimmo does pan out, it’s one more piece that does fit, and the picture becomes a little clearer. His statistics seem to think he’s for real, as they tend to with some other top Mets prospects. It is possible then that Nimmo could lead the Mets 2016 prospect list as perhaps… the best in baseball? That surely would be something special.
Wow, i never realized how good his walk rate and OBP were. Nearly .400 OBP the last 3 years.
The best part about Nimmo last season was his decline in strikeout rate. In about 70 more plate appearances he struck out almost 30 times less (in comparison to 2013).
Nimmo’s a solid ballplayer, who has been able to reach a new level, struggle at first, make adjustments, and the begin mastering it. Probably more of a table setter type of bat, 15-20 HR’s, solid OBP. His only weakness thus far is against left-handed pitching. Should he figure that out, he will be a very solid starter on a good major league team (hopefully the Mets)
Nimmo is particularly interesting because his natural approach appears to be totally in line with “the approach” as advocated by Sandy Alderson upon his arrival. Taking pitches, deep counts, working walks.
In fact, I believe that part of the reason why Nimmo was drafted was because of his approach to hitting. He fit into the system. It was almost a “statement” pick.
However, it also became a cause of concern for me, because I worry (present tense) that these guys might become too enamored with “approach” and miss out on pure talent. I always think that SA would have hated the young Jose Reyes. If they become too focused on walk rates, will they possibly miss the outstanding athlete who does not fit into that box?
I hope the club does not try to turn every hitting into a Nimmo type. That’s a real concern for me, actually; the fear that they could really screw up guys like d’Arnaud and Lagares, trying to rewire the circuitry. What works for Nimmo — so far — likely would not work for others.
Based on his comments, Long appears to be saying both points of view at once. He wants to treat hitters like individuals; it’s not one-size-fits-all; but at the same time he wants them to take more strikes and walk more often. We’ll see.
James, love everything you said until the last paragraph. Long talks about hunting strikes. He says that each individual player needs to know which pitches he does the most damage against and go after those pitches only. If it’s the first pitch or the fifth pitch, he needs to be prepared for that pitch. He talks about Lagares’ expanding the strike zone rather than going after only those pitches that he can handle.
Hudgens said all the same things.
i don’t think “hunting strikes” is a new concept—– and not at all a unique one.
The big drill was the in-the-at-bat games and demerits and fines pertaining to the valuation on pitches per at bat— players looking at fat pitches for the sake of taking pitches…players thinking in the at bat and not “hunting” for their pitch.
Hudgens was the old worn out tip of a very badly deployed “hitting plan”… players were demoralized and confused and lifeless with their bats. The proof was the “d’Arnaud Cure”—-getting away from all the noise and the crap!!!!
Call it what you want—players do need a plan relative to their strengths and game situtation. They also need strong coaching and not over coaching.
Here’s to Lagares and some better “strike hunting”!!