The return of Brandon Nimmo in August and what went wrong in July

In a season where close to nothing has gone as planned, it’s hard to single out Brandon Nimmo’s play for the Mets. But it’s been quite the unusual year for Nimmo, almost like we have no idea who he is or what to expect. He’s the kind of guy where if everything went right, you could see a .300/.400/.500 type of year. But anyone who’s followed the 2023 Mets knows everything didn’t go right. And as the team goes to St. Louis for a four-game set, Nimmo sports a .264/.362/.441 line in 515 PA.

The AVG and OBP components are in line, albeit lower, with our .300/.400 goal. But the power is not at our ideal level. Which seems strange to say, as Nimmo has tied his career-high with 17 HR. That mark was set in his breakout year in 2018, when he came into the season as a reserve fighting for playing time and, due to injuries to other outfielders early in the year, finished as a regular.

Nimmo got 535 PA in ’18, just 20 more than he has currently. But while the HR totals were identical, Nimmo had nine more doubles and four more triples in 2018 than he does now. That explains his .219 ISO in his breakout campaign, compared to his current .177 ISO. It should be noted that Nimmo’s current ISO is 18 points higher than his 2022 mark and 32 points higher than what he posted in 2021.

In the previous two seasons, Nimmo went thru multi-month, injury-related power outages over an extended period of time in both years. He doesn’t have that in the current campaign. What he does have is one HR-fueled stretch, followed by a period where he was not producing seemingly in any way at all, which is quite unusual for Nimmo.

From 6/13 to 7/4, a span of 87 PA, Nimmo hit 8 HR and had a .365 ISO, which has to be the best power stretch of his career. But for the remainder of July, a span of 89 PA, Nimmo posted a .156/.258/.286 line, which included a dismal .179 BABIP. Do people blame bad luck for this span? Of course not. They completely ignore a .153-point deficit from his lifetime BABIP. Instead, conventional wisdom blames the poor stretch on Nimmo trying to hit home runs.

Since the beginning of August, a span of 49 PA, Nimmo has a .342/.449/.537 line. And to what do people attribute this production? Yep, you guessed it – Nimmo is no longer trying to hit home runs. Of course, to believe that, you have to completely ignore the .364 BABIP he has in this stretch. You also have to ignore that he has two homers in this brief period, too. If we carried this 2 HR in 49 PA pace over his current year-to-date 515 PA, Nimmo would have 21 HR or four more than he has currently.

It amazes me how people are so over-the-top eager to blame every bad stretch on Player A trying to hit home runs. In that regard, it’s almost a relief to hear that theory not being applied to Starling Marte’s terrible year.

Nimmo has power. Now, he doesn’t have Pete Alonso 50-HR power but he’s quite capable of hitting the ball out of the park, even when he doesn’t pull the ball down the RF line. Here’s a 445-foot HR to CF that shows his power

Now, we don’t want Nimmo trying to hit the ball 445 feet each time he comes to the plate. But if a pitcher offers up a mistake in his wheelhouse, or he guesses right when a reliever comes on to pitch and throws a meatball trying to get ahead in the count, then we absolutely want Nimmo trying to go deep. It would be silly to want otherwise.

After the selloff, we heard owner Steve Cohen talk about being opportunistic when it comes to how he expected to operate in free agency. Maybe that means something, maybe it doesn’t. However, it’s not a bad phrase to apply to Nimmo. We want him to be opportunistic. Ideally, Nimmo takes pitches in the majority of his at-bats, looking for one he can drive for extra-bases, whether that comes on the first pitch or the sixth pitch.

That’s another thing. When Nimmo was allegedly looking to hit home runs and not being very productive, he was also allegedly not drawing walks. Of course, he had an 11.2 BB% in that closing stretch of July when he was terrible, compared to an 11.7 BB% overall this season. Just another thing that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.

It’s highly unlikely that Nimmo finishes the year with a .300/.400/.500 line. But we should all be encouraged that he’s doing that here in August, even while playing with a strained calf that cost him games in the beginning of the month and now has him playing in LF to avoid excess strain on his leg. Another thing to keep in mind is that historically, Nimmo performs very well in September. Some will say this is due to facing weaker pitchers in the season’s final month. Others will point out that he typically has been healthy in the month, something you can’t say for the other five months of the campaign.

Lifetime, Nimmo has a .285/.414/.494 line in 627 Sep/Oct PA, with 27 doubles, 8 triples and 21 home runs. That’s the equivalent of a full season for a player. And it’s also the player we want Nimmo to be, one with an elite OBP and an ISO above the .200 mark.