Brandon Nimmo is off to a strong start, as he has a .268/.379/.518 slash line after 67 PA. It’s great to see an ISO of .250 for him in the early going, as seven of his 15 hits have gone for extra-bases. But what might be the most encouraging thing so far is that Nimmo is thriving despite a BABIP 50 points below his career average. The hits aren’t falling in for him but he’s making up for it with power.
Coming into the year, there was a tiny bit of concern about his power, as he fell off last year in the category. But if you looked at his game logs, you would have seen that he suffered a huge drop in power when he returned from the IL, as his first two months back in action was almost exclusively singles. But Nimmo’s power returned in September, leaving hope that the outage was just a temporary thing.
The biggest worry was if Nimmo could stay healthy. The good news is that we’re less than a week away from clearing the time frame where he suffered injuries in 2019 and 2021 that caused him to miss multiple months. In 2019, he suffered a neck injury in late April that he tried to play thru before finally going on the then-called disabled list. And in 2021, his last game was on May 2 before he hit the injured list for two months.
Staying healthy is at least partially a skill. The good news for Nimmo is that the injuries he’s suffered are not what we would consider chronic ones. Instead of soft tissue injuries to like his hamstrings, Nimmo lost time due to the neck injury in 2019 and the hand/finger injury last year. There are some people – Nick Johnson leaps to mind – who seemingly suffer a different injury each year. Hopefully Nimmo has better luck than that. But while you should never downplay a neck injury, it seems like you’d prefer to have different injuries rather than repeating ones. If you keep injuring your hamstring, it’s likely to get progressively worse and break down repeatedly.
Most people when they think of Nimmo, the first – and perhaps only – thing that jumps to mind is his OBP. That’s not a surprise and it’s a good thing for which to be known. But the thing is that when healthy, Nimmo is a .200 ISO guy. That’s not a mark that will get you known as a power hitter. But it’s a really good number in the category. And it makes it possible for Nimmo to join a pretty exclusive club.
Last year, there were only three hitters who posted a .300 AVG along with a .400 OBP and a .500 SLG. You’ve likely heard of them. That trio was:
Juan Soto – .313/.465/.534
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. – .311/.401/.601
Bryce Harper – .309/.429/.615
There were a couple of hitters who came close – Freddie Freeman and Bryan Reynolds had OBPs in the .390s. But it just goes to show how rare this particular combination of hitting skills is. If the three players who turned the feat last year did it again and were joined by Nimmo, it’s clear who the worst player in the group would be. But, instead of being the tallest dwarf, this would make Nimmo the smallest 7-footer.
Just how likely is it that Nimmo would make this club?
Since becoming a full-time player in 2018, Nimmo has a .267/.397/.460 slash line. That’s really good but it’s a fair distance short of joining the Soto-Guerrero-Harper club, particularly in the AVG and SLG departments. But there’s reason to believe he can do better than his average marks in the category this year, providing he can stay healthy.
After posting a .263 AVG in 2018, Nimmo fell to a .221 mark in 2019. But the last two seasons have seen him notch a .280 and a .292 AVG, respectively. Anyone who posts a .292 AVG isn’t that far from a .300 mark. And, as noted at the beginning of this piece, Nimmo is currently significantly below his lifetime BABIP. He’ll need the hits to fall in at somewhere around his lifetime rate in order to have a shot. But it’s not an unreasonable ask for a player in his 20s to turn in his lifetime mark in a category.
But what about the power? Let’s break it down to some specific periods in his career:
2018 – .220 ISO in 535 PA – full season
2019 – .163 ISO in 96 PA – before neck injury
2019 – .304 ISO in 93 PA – after neck injury
2020 – .204 ISO in 225 PA – full season
2021 – .169 ISO in 85 PA – before hand injury
2021 – .233 ISO in 81 PA – final month of the season
2022 – .250 ISO in 67 PA – season to date
These are some solid power numbers. You can say they’re cherry picked. I would disagree with that, countering that they were chosen around specific injuries. The record is what it is – Nimmo with a .193 ISO since 2018. That’s almost what we need him to have by itself. But there’s reason beyond fanboy optimism to think a healthy season will have him clear a .200 ISO with room to spare.
Clearly, there are things that need to go right. First and foremost is refraining from an injury that puts him out for multiple months of the season. But if Nimmo is able to do that, the rest should be relatively easy. He just needs the hits to fall in at his career rate, while maintaining his current K%, and he needs to deliver the power that he has when healthy the previous four years.
Nimmo isn’t flashy and he gets lost among his own teammates so it’s no surprise that he’s not considered one of the elite performers in the game. He doesn’t have Pete Alonso’s power nor the flash and name recognition of Francisco Lindor. But a healthy season where he joins the .300/.400/.500 club will help others outside of Mets fans to recognize the offensive skills of Nimmo. And just in time for his walk year, too. May this last season before free agency play out better for Nimmo than for his pal Michael Conforto.
Nimmo has very clearly improved as a hitter and matured as a player in general. But the better hitter was clearly evident last season, driving balls late in the count into left-center consistently, comfortable going the other way, negating the shift against him. This year he has unloaded on a few balls that we caught deep in the gaps… might be Hrs in warmer weather.
He also seems to have cleaned up the strikeouts. He seems more adept at hitting with two strikes, and that might correspond with his choking further up the handle. I remember at bats where he seemed lost and just waiting to strike out. While he still gets overmatched at times, I believe we will watch him continue to gain confidence and become the best we have seen.
It could also be that Buck keeping him in centerfield created a determination in Nimmo. He believes he owns the position and is not auditioning for it as in years past. Marte in RF seems perfect, and we have to credit Buck with the seemingly simple but essential decision.
Nimmo is having an All-Star year. He leads all NL center fielders in fWAR, 0BP,SLG,ISO,wRC+ and is second in BA and HR’s. He in a very valuable player and he is blossoming into a star.
I did predict he would be the starting CF in the all star game this year.
I think Eppler may regret not getting an extension done with him before spring training.
Don’t fret, he will get paid by Cohen for what he is worth.
Who knows. Nimmo switched to Boras and he might price himself beyond where the Mets want to go. I’m a big fan, and hoped that he would be extended more than a full year ago. At this point, the numbers will go where they go and the Mets will have to make a very difficult decision.