Brandon Nimmo wants to make a run at the playoffs
Mets outfielder Brandon Nimmo. Credit: Newsday/Alejandra Villa Loarca
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — The year was 2016 and then-rookie outfielder Brandon Nimmo was a spectator, not a participant, as the Mets hosted the Giants in the National League wild-card game at Citi Field.
“It was a great atmosphere,” Nimmo recalled recently.
The Mets, who had been to the World Series the season before, lost the game, 3-0. But surely that was only a blip . . .
No. The Mets haven’t been to the postseason since, which means that Nimmo — the club’s longest-tenured position player — hasn’t set foot on the field for a playoff game in his six-year career.
He’s aching for that to change in 2022.
“That’s what this is all about,” Nimmo said. “And at this point in my career — where you start to get past the shock and awe of the beginning and trying to stay — you also start to look at things further. And now I’m looking on as a team, I have not made the playoffs. So that’s definitely a goal of mine that I’m looking forward to and that I’m trying to work really hard for. That’s definitely on my mind.”
Ever since he was the 13th overall pick in the 2011 draft out of Wyoming — where they don’t play a lot of baseball in the summer because they don’t have a lot of summer — Nimmo has been knocking on the door of something special.
He’s a dynamic player who gets on base at a .393 career clip and makes the Mets’ offense go. He runs to first base when he draws a walk. He never stops smiling. Challenged in 2021 to make himself a better defensive centerfielder, he did, enough so that free-agent signee Starling Marte has moved to right (with Mark Canha in left).
But Nimmo hasn’t stayed healthy enough to completely fulfill the promise then-general manager Sandy Alderson saw in him in 2011. Now second only to Jacob deGrom in service time with the Mets, the 29-year-old Nimmo is hoping to earn his first All-Star berth . . . and much more.
“I usually think if the team’s doing well, then I’m helping out with that,” Nimmo said. “An All-Star Game might be part of that just by me pulling my weight. If I’m me and I do what I do — .400 on-base percentage, pretty decent OPS and those kind of things — it’ll be there. If I’m on the field and I’m doing well.”
If I’m on the field — that’s pretty much the story for Nimmo, who appeared in a career-high 140 games in 2018, when he hit .263 with 17 homers, a .404 OBP and an .886 OPS.
The next year, injuries limited Nimmo to 69 games. He appeared in 55 of 60 games in the COVID-shortened 2020 season but just 92 in the desert that was 2021.
“There’s definitely been some disappointing seasons,” Nimmo said. “I would like to be a part of one that meets or surpasses expectations.”
If this one does, Mets fans probably will be able to thank Nimmo, the “grizzled veteran” who was just a wide-eyed kid the last time the team made the playoffs.
“What it makes me think is that time is really flying by,” Nimmo said. “I remember when I was just breaking in here and my first big-league camp in ’14, and now to be with Jake as one of the longest-tenured vets, it’s just like, ‘Wow, how time flies by and how short this window is.’
“Just helps me to appreciate, being on this team, being as fortunate as I’ve been to be with a single team, and be able to kind of put my roots down. How precious it is. How fragile it is.”
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
