The Mets have shut down injured outfielder Brandon Nimmo from baseball activities for the next month, Anthony DiComo of MLB.com was among those to report. Nimmo has been on the injured list since May 21 with a bulging disc in his neck.
Nimmo received his second epidural Tuesday since going on the IL, per DiComo. At this point, the Mets aren’t considering surgery for the 26-year-old, according to manager Mickey Callaway. Nevertheless, the fact that Nimmo will miss significantly more time than he already has is unwelcome news for the Mets, who – at 34-38 – haven’t had much go their way this season.
Nimmo, whom the Mets chose 13th overall in 2011, was one of the majors’ prominent breakout players in 2018. He slashed .263/.404/.483 (149 wRC+) with 17 home runs and 4.5 fWAR across 535 plate appearances. Nimmo wasn’t nearly as effective this year before going on the IL, evidenced by a .200/.344/.323 line (89 wRC+), though that was only a 161-PA sample size.
Even considering Nimmo’s massive offensive decline this season, a healthy version would likely be the Mets’ best option in center field. Carlos Gomez and Juan Lagares have gotten all the playing time in center since Nimmo went down, but neither player has produced. They’re now drawing up plans to turn to right fielder Michael Conforto in center, Jeff McNeil in right and Dominic Smith in left, according to Mike Puma of the New York Post. All three of those players have been among the Mets’ best hitters in 2019, but Conforto struggled mightily in center last season and Smith hasn’t shown he can handle the outfield on a consistent basis.
does any met return from injury???
That guy was never gonna be any good anyway.
Oh ye of little faith…..
He’s already been good, and that’s with the fact that he’s been frequently playing out of position because of the Mets repeatedly refusing to get a real center fielder.
Another good idea is to drop Familia off on a deserted road and drive off as fast as you can. What a dumpster fire.
I agree with beerman. Can the driver please throw the Wilpon’s in the back of the truck and dump them as well? They are resourceful enough to call Joel Sherman and when their battery runs out maybe their ownership will as well.
Conforto, Smith and McNeil are going to be a comically bad defensive outfield. Not that it matters.
Matters a little bit. They are presumably going to spend the next month trying to find a reason to believe they are able to contend, so wins still matter.
And, even if they have to do a complete and total sell off (which they really have to consider- unless the payroll is going up to 250 million next year what possible reason is there to believe they can contend next season?) you don’t want to run down the value of your prime sale assets (Wheeler, Syndergaard, Degrom, Diaz) by forcing them to have to work harder just to get through innings.
Payroll 250 million!
HAHAHAHAHA!
Your arguments are logical. The Mets owners are not. They’ll Mets it up. It doesn’t seem Fred and Jeff can find a top GM and let the guy or gal do what is best for the franchise long term.
JMO, I think the Wilpons are so leveraged that they are one of the few teams that actually needs the revenue from the gate to stay afloat. I think that’s why we saw Brodie put together the roster he has – give the semblance of contention and hope for a lot of luck.
Mets attendance has been 9th/10th out 15 in the league the last 3 years. Last year’s 2.2 million fans were a bit more than half the levels of ten years ago – when Citi opened I guess. They are 9th this year and attendance is up about 1,500 a game, but if they slump, the dog days of summer will be…woof.
Next 14 games, Cubs, Phils, Braves and Yanks could take them out of the race. It will be an interesting stretch.
Cool thing about baseball is you have to play the games. I’m looking forward to see how the team responds.
That’s an interesting take. I never really thought of it like Upton that. Maybe the Wilpons do allow GMs to make some of the moves they do just for the sole purpose of bringing in big names to increase immediate ticket sales. That is a scary thought for Mets fans though. That’s something only teams like the Yankees have been able to get away with in the past without diminishing their ability to seriously compete (i.e. Kevin Brown, Randy Johnson, Pudge Rodriguez, etc). As a Braves fan, I always thought the Mets did a poor job of getting good GMs. It seems like they run their team with the sole mission of beating the Yankees in New York headlines during offseason acquisitions. Everyone thought Brodie was doing an incredible job this off season, but if I were a Mets fan I would have absolutely cringed during the Cano trade. It reminded me of the only Mets GM I remember who was actually worse than Brodie and that was Steve Phillips. Phillips overpaid to sign Mo Vaughn after a year in which he sat out for the entire season due to injury. Then he overpaid for Tom Glavine after the entire world watched him get shelled for half a season and then get the Braves eliminated from the playoffs. I don’t get the obsession with underperforming overpaid veterans that are old and obviously way past their prime (unless of course the team is more concerned with ticket sales than winning long term). Brodie reminds me of Padres GM AJ Preller. The Braves got so much better after getting that guy to give us a ton of great prospects and eat up the massive BJ Upton contract. I can only imagine the Dodgers relief when Preller took on the Kemp contract. The crazy thing is the Braves won the division last year but most analysts had them finishing 4th place this year. They said the “big” acquisitions made by the Mets, Phils, and Nats were going to be way to much for the Braves to compete with them. Sometimes I feel like writers just want their teams to make big trades and signings regardless of whether it helps the team or not. That way they have something to write about. It’s funny how the teams that have the most disappointing seasons are always do those deals the previous off season. The sad thing for fans is most of those deals have long term effects. The Mets had to watch players like Scott Kazmir and Nolan Ryan flourish for their entire careers with other teams. Now they have to spend the next half decade watching Robinson Cano stink it up while eating up an excruciatinly exorbitant amount of their payroll. Luckily for them, they didn’t have to do that with Mo Vaughn for very long. He was almost always too injured to even show up to the games while they were paying him $18 million a season for over half a decade.
There were articles a year or two ago reporting that Fred was incensed when the Yanks had the financial resources to take on the Stanton contract. Fred especially seems to worry about the Yanks.
I think the Wilpons wrongly value and emphasize a GM that will shield them and placate their whims and poor roster management rather than getting a cutting edge GM and giving them much more autonomy and authority.
I think guys like Phillips and Alderson knew the most important aspect of keeping that job was doing what Fred wanted and deftly operating between him and Jeff, rather than doing what they thought was best for the team long term.
All jmo, but I’d bet neither those guys or BVW had/has the right skill set to build a forward looking franchise. If they did/do, the goals and meddling by the owners seem contrary to doing so.
To use the word “flourish” when talking about Kazmir is pretty funny, and to use him as an example with Ryan is mind boggling to say the least.
I would say flourish is a pretty accurate term to describe Kazmir in Tampa Bay and Oakland. Especially when you consider he was the Mets best prospect at the time and all they got in return for him was terrible Victor Zambrano. I only compare him to Nolan Ryan in the sense that it was another Mets trade where everyone in the league but the Mets knew it was an obvious trade rape before it happened. Nolan Ryan was the Mets version of Boston trading Ruth. I know Ruth was far better, but at least that happened in the 20’s by some guy that was more obsessed with show tunes than he was baseball. The Mets traded Ryan far more recently than that and it was done by baseball guys. The Mets front office should have known better. Everyone else did.
The Reds traded Frank Robinson. That’s more like Ruth.
F Robby was that good.
I agree. Frank Robinson was incredible. I was just referring to Mets trades in this post. Heck, as a sports fan in general I am in no position of privilege. I know this isn’t an NFL site but my beloved Falcons traded away Brett Favre before he even made his first start. For a draft pick that was a complete bust to boot!
At the time,everyone knew the Ryan trade was ridiculous – except for the Mets incompetent GM… Whitey Herzog threw a tantrum when he found out and it had a lot to do with him leaving and not taking over as manager.
The spin that Ryan didn’t want to be in NY was never true. He never got on a role because his military service caused him to miss starts and he showed signs of breaking out in his last year in NY. He was upset when he left and didn’t forgive the team for years. .
Pretty funny as the Cano Trade.
I don’t know if you are a troll or an idiot but Philips didn’t sign Moe Vaugn to ANYTHING. He trade one bad contact for another.
Glavine was an above average pitcher for the Mets.
I didn’t like either player but the facts are the facts..
Man. They flagged this as something that is awaiting moderation. I guess it’s an algorithm thing because of the edited word I used in the direct Mo Vaughn quote. I am trying to copy and paste my comment without that but I didn’t realize it would take longer than the 5 minute edit period before this post got moderated. Seems almost impossible now.
An OF of Smith/Conforto/McNeil will be completely hideous. They can’t possibly hit enough to overcome their defensive inadequacies.
What an outfield. It’s like watching three fat chicks on a water bed.
LOL!
lmao
He probably wanted to keep playing, but the Mets said Nimmo games for now.
I know, I hate me too sometimes.
Sounds like his career will be 40000 Leagues Under The Sea soon
Just sometimes?
That actually was pretty good.
He’s a boring player to watch. He either strikes out, walks, or gets hit by the pitch.
Yeah a 400 + on base percentage is so boring ……….
Yes it is. I said he was boring. I did not say he wasn’t valuable.
Brandon go to Bergman Family Chiropractic in Huntington Beach, CA no surgery!
Not sure I totally agree. I’m sure he’s getting top notch medical attention and they’re making attempts to avoid surgery. However, having experienced a similar malady, I tried everything and in the end a cervical fusion procedure was necessary. That’s 26 years ago. That turned out to be the best decision, at least for me. I wouldn’t rule it out for Brandon.
I think the Mets should take turns shutting down everybody on the Roster
How about shutting down the Wilpon’s as owners?
The fact that their attendance is up (even slightly) this year shows how many foolish Mets fans are willing to buy the story with a prayer and false hope and waste their money.
The silver lining of this otherwise ominous black cloud is that this bulging disc issue didn’t come on the heels of a 5-year extension.
Brett Lawrie is available