Mets: Brandon Nimmo’s willingness to get hit by pitches will cost him

New York Mets outfielder Brandon Nimmo isn’t afraid to get hit by pitches. Unfortunately, this may have led to his current slump and could cost him even more in the future.

If you want on vacation this summer to a tropical country without Internet or any outside communication, you’ll be shocked to return to the mainland and see how far Brandon Nimmo has fallen. The New York Mets spark this season finished May batting .287 overall and completed June with a .270 batting average on the year.

Both are good totals for a guy nobody expected to see play this often. Lately, though, Nimmo has struggled at the plate.

Every month in 2018 has included a decline at the plate. His monthly batting average has gone down each flip of the calendar. Many point to the hit by pitch on June 24 as a big reason why he’s slumping so much over the last two months.

It’s a fair theory and a likely culprit. His batting average has gone down about 40 points since then. He has only two home runs after.

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We don’t know for sure if this hit by pitch is the reason why we’ve seen a lighter version of Nimmo or not. What we do know is that frequent hit by pitches increases the change for an injury. Nimmo’s incredible 2018 total is no anomaly. If this persists, it will surely cost him more and more as his career progresses.

Baseball fans love a guy who sacrifices his body for the sake of the team. Letting a ball smack you in the back is one perfect way to get on base and potentially start a rally. The problem is that not all hit by pitches are created equally. Some smack off more sensitive areas. Often, a batter doesn’t know where it will strike until it’s too late.

Nimmo hasn’t missed much time due to an ailing body. In fact, after the June 24 game, he continued to play. The following two games featured Nimmo in a bench role, allowing him a limited chance to recover.

Plenty of good great ball players made a living out of getting hit by pitches. Hall of Famer Craig Biggio regularly got hit more than 20 times per year. In many of the years where he led the league in this category, he played in over 150 games. Twice he led the league in hit by pitches and games played with a perfect 162-game attendance.

Not all players are as lucky as Biggio. There’s an art to getting hit by pitches and I have to wonder if Nimmo has mastered it.

We’ve seen plenty of players get hit with pitches and side effects follow both mentally and physically. As fearless as Nimmo is, every hit by pitch runs the risk of missing extra time.

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And even if it doesn’t cost him games, it may cost him quality at-bats. This could be the reason why we’re seeing a lengthy slump late in the year.