Mets: Brandon Nimmo best and worst case scenarios for 2019

Brandon Nimmo is currently slated to start the 2019 season in the New York Mets outfield in 2019. Coming off of a successful 2018 campaign, here are his best and worst case scenarios for next year.

After spending sporadic parts of the 2016 and 2017 seasons with the New York Mets, Brandon Nimmo finally took over the job as a starting outfielder in 2018. It was one of the few bright spots for New York in what was, unfortunately, a very bleak year.

After signing with the Mets at the age of just 18 after they selected him in the first round of the 2011 MLB draft, Nimmo has spent the entirety of his professional career with the club, forgoing college and joining them straight out of high school.

Being that he was drafted and signed out of high school, he took a few more years to develop, as is the case with most players in similar situations and spent five years in the Mets’ minor league system before being called up to the majors for the first time in 2016.

Mainly being used as a bench player and spot starter in the beginning of his big league career, Nimmo was given the opportunity to get regular playing time toward the end of the 2017 season after the Mets traded away starting outfielders Curtis Granderson and Jay Bruce, along with Michael Conforto and Yoenis Cespedes ending the season on the disabled list.

Nimmo performed admirably in his first opportunity as a Mets starter, finishing 2017 appearing in 69 games in the majors, hit 5 home runs with 21 RBI while batting .260 with an impressive .379 OBP. He also displayed a lot of versatility, starting games in all three outfield positions.

Thanks to his strong finish to the year, Nimmo forced himself into the Mets plans in 2018, beginning the season a the big league roster for the first time in his career. In another season plagued by injuries for the Mets, Nimmo took over as an everyday starter for the majority of the season.

Appearing 140 games for New York last season, Nimmo hit 17 home runs and 47 RBI, all of which are new career highs for him. For the year, he batted .263 with a .404 OBP, establishing himself as the Mets leadoff hitter and starting right-fielder for next season.

At just 25 years old, Nimmo has undoubtfully secured his spot on the major league team going forward.

With that being said, here are his best and worst case scenarios for 2019.

Best Case Scenario

The best case scenario for Nimmo is that he continues to improve as a hitter and raises his offensive output by increasing his batting average and home run output.

Traditionally, Nimmo has always been a high on-base-percentage hitter, always drawing a high number of walks throughout both his major league and minor league career. Last season his OBP was .404, 4th highest in the MLB behind Mike Trout, Mookie Betts and Joey Votto, and ranked ahead of NL MVP Christain Yelich, whose OBP of .402 was ranked 5th.

He accomplished this with good plate discipline, drawing 80 walks last season, and also by inexplicably leading the majors in hit-by-pitches last year with 20.

While Nimmo’s OBP is well above average, he did this despite only batting .263. While that’s not terrible by any means, ideally, since last year was his first full season and since he’s a young player, he should improve as time goes on and raise his average.

As a leadoff hitter, the name of the game for Nimmo is to get on base and get into scoring position so players hitting behind him in the order has a chance to drive him in. Despite such a high OBP, Nimmo only scored 77 runs last season, and the Mets ranked 23 in the league in runs scored.

If he were it increase his average while not sacrificing his walks, then theoretically his OBP would raise with his average, hence he would be giving the hitters behind him more of a chance to drive him in.

With the Mets’ recent acquisitions of big name hitters such as Robinson Cano and Wilson Ramos, Nimmo’s going to have much better hitters behind him than compared to last season, meaning that the ability for him to consistently get on base is paramount.

Along with getting on base, Nimmo should ideally also increase his home run output next season. Last year he slugged 17 home runs, which is the highest total he his ever had in a single season, minors included.

While this may seem like a little too wishful thinking, since this is the best case scenario, it’s still worth mentioning. Nimmo only had 433 at-bats last season, so as long as he continues to hit homers at the same rate as last year and sees at lead 500 appearances, then he should be able to hit at least 20

If Brandon Nimmo were to do this in 2019, and after establishing himself as a big league player last season, then he should be due to get his first All-Star appearance and would be a big contributor for the Mets in their hopeful trip to the post-season next year