This is an old but good one:
This was on December 10th, 2017 at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort in Orlando, Florida. Rumors had just started to circulate that the Yankees were looking to make a strong showing at the Winter Meetings. They were looking to trade Starlin Castro, Jose Devers and Jorge Guzman for Giancarlo Stanton.
Stanton, who hit 59 homers and drove in 132 RBIs to edge Joey Votto for the 2017 National League MVP award, would join a lineup that already includes Aaron Judge, who hit 52 homers as a rookie in 2017, and the Marlins would take on a big chunk of the signing bonus. It was like another round of “No, No, Nanette.”
Of course, Mets fans reacted positively to this.
Sandy Alderson, who was running the Mets at the time, wasn’t afraid to take a look to see which way the social media winds were blowing, and when he did, amid a swarm of reporters, he smiled.
“Brandon Nimmo was the right fielder so I didn’t see a need there,” he said.
Now, it’s nice to think that Alderson knew something that nobody else knew — he is, after all, the guy who drafted Nimmo in the first round, 13th overall, in 2011, eight months after Alderson took over the team — but it’s more likely that Alderson was just being Alderson and giving a witty wink.
After all, Nimmo had played in exactly 101 major league games up to that point, with exactly 250 plate appearances, and posted a reliable .264/.367/.392 batting average and seven home runs. At that point, he wasn’t even the Mets’ highest-rated young outfielder, not even particularly different from Michael Conforto.
That’s interesting.
Conforto is already gone after batting just .240 with the Giants, and Stanton’s time with the Yankees was unlucky, to say the least. Since 2018, he’s batted .244/.326/.485 with an .811 OPS and an OPS+ of 121.
Nimmo batted .268 with a .380 on-base percentage and a .453 slugging percentage during that same period, with an .834 OPS and an OPS+ of 133. Stanton is 153-95 with a home run since 2018, but it’s hard to seriously debate who was the better player.
Maybe Sandy knew.
Watching Nimmo now, you see a 31-year-old playing with extraordinary confidence. Since starting a crucial 35-game stretch against struggling teams, the Mets won 17 of 26 games, holding off the Nationals 7-5 to move back to .500, 45-45. Nimmo started the night with a fly ball to left field in the bottom of the second inning that went over the wall.
“A home run on the batter’s side,” he said with a laugh.
He and Francisco Lindor, who also homered on Tuesday, form a powerful 1-2 duo at the top of the lineup. Neither will play in next week’s All-Star Game in Arlington, Texas, but that may be for the best for the Mets, who have done so much of the heavy lifting lately.
“First of all, they’re great players,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “They’ve been doing it a long time, but it’s impressive the way they control the strike zone, the way they impact the ball, the way they hit it the other way. They see the ball very well.”
Yes. Nimmo seems to be getting a significant hit every day these days. It’s hard to understand why he’s not an All-Star. But the Mets know who he is. They know what they have. On May 30, he was hitting .209. Forty days later, he’s hitting .320/.483/.502. Tuesday’s homer was his eighth in 32 games, with 26 RBIs.
“I was surprised I didn’t get in because I thought I had a pretty good chance,” admitted Nimmo, who added three RBIs to his team-leading 58. “Statistically speaking, I’m being honest with myself, and I’m high in a lot of categories that matter.”
He’s already won the hearts of the Mets, but he’s won the hearts of Mets fans before that. Fans may not have believed Alderson when he was teasing them seven years ago. Who would? But Nimmo’s smile and obvious joy at playing baseball were infectious from the get-go. He’s a home-grown player at his finest. Mets fans have literally grown up with him.
And the thing to think about is that he may be on his way quickly to becoming one of the top five everyday players in Mets history — a list that currently includes Mike Piazza, Carlos Beltran, David Wright, Keith Hernandez and Darryl Strawberry — and he’s likely to crack the top 10, at the very least.
He may still be waiting to make his first All-Star team, but he’s already established himself as a star.
