Mets' Brandon Nimmo OK moving to leftfield with Harrison Bader playing center

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — In only the second season of Brandon Nimmo’s eight-year contract, the Mets are ready to move him out of centerfield at least a lot of the time.

He is accepting of that, too. He knows they have a good reason . . . and it has little to do with his own abilities.

“I’m a good centerfielder,” Nimmo, who is slated to play mostly leftfield, said Monday after the Mets’ first full-squad workout of spring training. “But if we’re bringing someone else in, then we’re going to have a really dang good outfield.”

That someone else is Harrison Bader, who joined the team on a one-year, $10.5 million contract last month.

Bringing in Bader was the culmination of a monthslong effort to add an elite defensive outfielder, part of president of baseball operations David Stearns’ desire to bolster the Mets’ fielding abilities.

From the start, Mets decision-makers kept Nimmo in the loop, he said. When they connected by phone in November — while Nimmo was in Italy — Stearns wanted to gauge Nimmo’s feelings on the possibility of switching to a corner outfield spot.

The Mets were eyeing a player along the lines of Bader, but buy-in from Nimmo, a team leader and the longest-tenured Met, was important. He is a homegrown fan favorite and had put in lots of work over many years to turn himself into a bona fide centerfielder, cashing in with a $162 million deal before the 2023 season.

SEE PHOTOSPhotos: Mets spring training

“I told him, honestly, my goal at this point in my career is to win a World Series,” said Nimmo, who has played 157 games in leftfield in his career, including 10 last year. “If you think that creating better outfield defense or adding these guys to our roster is going to help our chances of winning the World Series, then I’ll do whatever it takes to do that. I put my trust in him. If you think this will make us better, fine by me.”

Bader said: “That’s awesome. The biggest thing that we preach in the outfield is moving as a unit. Part of moving as a unit is being together, being one. To hear him say that means a lot.”

Manager Carlos Mendoza and Nimmo both had all sorts of caveats in describing the outfield alignment and expectations, including that they anticipate Nimmo playing some center. That will be based on the schedule, pitching matchups and workloads — plus, of course, health, a particularly difficult-to-predict variable in the case of Bader.

But make no mistake: Plan A is Nimmo in left, Bader in center.

“That goes to show you the type of player Nimmo is and what he represents for the team and the organization,” Mendoza said. “He’s willing to do whatever it takes.”

Bader offered that he “absolutely” will be ready for Opening Day after having groin surgery last September.

That was his third injury of the year, which he split between the Yankees and Reds. He also had a right hamstring strain and left oblique strain. In previous seasons, he dealt with plantar fasciitis, a rib fracture and another hamstring strain.

As good as he is in center and occasionally at the plate, Bader often has not been available for either. He has averaged about 100 games per season in recent years.

“We all know the type of player Bader is,” Mendoza said. “One of the best defenders there is in the game. It’s about the health. He’s going to play a lot, but we have to watch him.”

All Nimmo asks for is a heads-up on where he’ll be playing when so he can prepare properly. Mendoza said he will provide that.

“It’s just being versatile, knowing that we have an amazing centerfielder in Harrison that we brought in,” Nimmo said. “There’s a lot of different ways he’s going to want to write the lineup.”

By Tim Healey

timothy.healey@newsday.com@timbhealey

Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.