Brandon Nimmo’s 2023 season is over, as the Mets placed the outfielder on the 10-day injured list due to a right shoulder sprain. The placement is retroactive to September 29, and catcher Michael Perez was called up from Triple-A in the corresponding roster move.
Manager Buck Showalter told MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo (X links) and other reporters that Nimmo’s injury is related to his AC joint. An MRI didn’t reveal any damage to the rotator cuff, so it doesn’t appear to be a particularly serious issue or anything that would hamper Nimmo’s readiness for Spring Training. Nimmo even told the Athletic’s Tim Britton and other media that he would’ve kept playing if the Mets had still been in playoff contention, and that he should need only 10-14 days to recovery.
Injuries have often plagued Nimmo during his career, yet he followed up a career-best 151 games and 672 plate appearances in 2022 by narrowly topping both marks in 2023, playing 152 games and making 682 trips to the plate. Nimmo his .274/.363/.466 with a career-high 24 home runs this year, with a 130 wRC+ and 4.4 fWAR.
While the Mets’ season as a whole was a disappointment, Nimmo was a bright spot, and his continued good health provides some extra relief given his long-term importance to the team. New York re-signed Nimmo to an eight-year, $162MM free agent deal last winter, which outpaced even the most optimistic projections for a player whose injury history (though not his production when healthy) was such a question mark. It’s obviously too early to call the signing a clear win just yet, but Nimmo’s continued strong play beyond his contract year is a good sign that he can be a big part of what the Mets hope will be an eventual return to contention.
Hope they don’t lose him, then they’re gonna have to go Finding Nimmo.
This late in the season, does this even matter? Or, does it have to do with offseason rosters?
They were able to call up catcher Michael Perez. No, it doesn’t matter.
I’m not sure if that was sarcasm, but I’m not really counting a .555 OPS guy in 201 games (0.1 WAR) as mattering. I guess you could look at his numbers this year, but beyond that…
No sarcasm. It doesn’t matter. Look at the Mets’ record. I take that back, it matters to Michael Perez and his family. But that’s it.
End of the year roster juggling.
Maybe he is up to play game #2 of the double-header today
Fun unrelated info time—
Spencer Strider needs to strikeout 26 hitters today to end up with an even 300. I think the chances of that happening are a little more than Rob Manfriend eventually figuring out how to put lipstick on his pig while he kisses it.
Strider’s stats entering tonight’a game—
19-5, 31 G, 3.81 ERA, 181.2 IP, 274 K
3 game audition for a 2024 minor league contract somewhere, even if it means a return to NYM/Syracuse.
Mr Perez will surely be dropped from the 40 man roster at post-season so some of the 60 day IL people can be activated and protected.
Like it or not, there are dozens of depth catchers available every off-season with similar skills as Perez.
Either way, the Mets are doing him a favor. By ending the season on a big league roster, he will now be entitled to 5 opt-out dates if he signs a minor league contract for next season. If they’d kept him in the minors, he’d be stuck with whatever team signs him.
Yes. They probably are planning to make another run at the offseason championship, they have a proud history of winning offseasons & tend to strategize well.
Just a touch of vaginitis. He should be ready for spring training.
Luckily, there is no actual baseball involved in the offseason World Series. The Padres should also be a serious contender.
A lot of people thought this contract was a massive overpay (and perhaps it was), but Nimmo really lived up to it at least in year one. It remains to be seen if he can keep it up for the long haul of course, but the Mets have to be pretty encouraged with the results so far.
8 years! Damn! You’re right. So far so good, but 7 long years to go. Best of luck.
@ HBan22 The average annual salary was never thought to be an overpay. The issue is with the number of years. And that is still a concern.
The thing is, no one who knows baseball thought it was a “massive overpay” in the context of the position as a whole being dismal this decade, and with the 6/150m deal for George Springer two years prior, or the $300m deals that would be handed out the same offseason, and finally the current high-inflation environment that means the additional years serve to defray the cost of the deal such that paying out $20m 8 years from now could well cost only around $10m-12m in 2023 dollars.
Good luck in any case finding a 5-win CFer with elite OBP skills, who’ll gracefully move to a corner OF spot in the three years and train hard enough to stay in the outfield until the deal’s done.
If you’re talking those imbecile Mets fans who have been calling Nimmo a ‘4th outfielder’ for the better part of the last decade, though, yeah. They were probably calling it that.
Like Nimmo, I’d have kept watching if the Mets were in playoff contention.
felix bautista is geting tommy john x.com/jakedrill/status/1708214897090105730?s=46�…
They should put Billy Eppler on the permanent DL, biggest screwup of a franchise I’ve ever seen
So what are your thoughts on Eppler’s Nimmo signing, LGFM?
Would you have done it?
Nimmo was one of the few bright spots for the Mets this season
@EasternLeagueVeteran No I would not have signed Nimmo for that contract. My max would have been 5 years 80 mil, this is gonna age very poorly
Of course it won’t age well. And neither has any other 8-year contract thus far. Do you think the Mets did not know that? Of course they did. Thats why they never reached an agreement before he hit free agency.
But that isn’t the point. We can’t just look at this contract in a vacuum. The Mets overspent in 2022 and were “rewarded” (more like cursed) with a 101-win season, so they were all in on this year. Yes, that plan was misguided. But that is where they went, and that is the hole into which they’d dug themselves.
Nimmo was not only the best outfielder on the free agent market. He was only starter under 33 years old, and the only starting center fielder. He was going to get overpaid no matter where he went, and the Mets could not, in their view, afford to let him go.
This is what happens when you try to contend without having a legitimate triple-A (or even double-A) roster to provide reinforcements in the face of injuries, and continuity when players leave. Like I said.. “misguided”. But thats where we are.
As for this contract and how it ages, we already know that Steve Cohen isn’t afraid to eat his losses and trade players who still have lots of remaining $$ on their contracts. So when Nimmo ages, Cohen will act.
The bigger issue is when the Mets’ other free agent targets say, “If Nimmo got that, then I want even more.” Its already been suggested that this is the basis for Alonso asking for ten years.
@geoff I agree with a lot of what you said. Your wrong about signing him before free agency started, he got signed during FA. I remember him having convos with the Rockies
I think you may have misread what I said:
“Of course it won’t age well. And neither has any other 8-year contract thus far. Do you think the Mets did not know that? Of course they did. That’s why they n e v e r reached an agreement before he hit free agency.”
@geofft your correct, read too fast through
The Mets failed to reach an agreement prior to last offseason because the Wilpons were going to trade Nimmo or let him walk, and by the time Cohen got organized he was close enough to FA to reject lowball offers. Still, if the Mets had brains, they would have offered 3/45m in early May 2021 when Nimmo was badly hurt for the 2nd time in 3 seasons and was going to miss about half the year again. His agents would have come back with 4/64m and they would have settled somewhere in between.
Nimmo playing half time would be worth that.
@ JackStrawb There are assumptions about Nimmo’s agent that I do not believe would have played out the way you think. Nimmo’s agent is Scott Boras. I doubt he would have even dignified that small an offer with a response rather than wait for free agency. Or he would’ve come back with something much, much higher.
That said, it is water under the bridge. Nimmo’s here for that contract. The money is not an issue. The years might be. But if/when it does, we’ll let Uncle Steve deal with it.
@LFGMets, “gonna age very poorly”? Speed fades with age, but Nimmo doesn’t steal 2nd, 3rd or home, his forte is getting on base, lots of walks, and hustle. On base skill and hustle can age well. Brett Gardner hustled well into his late 30’s, Nimmo will keep it up.
@Wampum Walloper Spending 20 mil a year on an eventual corner outfielder in their mid 30s is not optimal if you want to win a championship. He has a good eye but once his bat speed fades that eye just isn’t going to matter when the pitchers can just overpower him
Pretty dumb to do this at the end of the season. Now he will be out for the first 7 games of 2024.
Its ten days. Not ten games.
and he will miss the nlds if somehow mets get in