What went wrong: Brandon Nimmo couldn’t stay on the field
By far the easiest criticism of Nimmo is how un-Cal Ripken he has been in his career. In 2018, Nimmo began to play regularly for the Mets. He suited up in 140 games and it looked like the club had a guy they could rely on for a starting gig in one of the outfield spots.
An injury in 2019 limited him to only 69 games. This past year, Nimmo only participated in 92 of them.
Injuries are tough to predict. Based on the way he plays, I feel like they are even more inevitable. He gives 100% on every play and doesn’t even dog it to first base on a walk. While these factors aren’t necessarily a contributor to his annual trip to the IL, it may represent how much more likely it is for him to get hurt on any given play.
It’s unfortunate that Nimmo will head into his final year of arbitration with a single season of 400+ plate appearances. The shortened 2020 season stole a part of this away but who can say he wouldn’t have gotten hurt at some point if we had the regularly scheduled 162?
I’m not sure there is an answer to prevent Nimmo from getting hurt. Yoga can only do so much. The same is true for extra days off. It might simply be a case of working through the injuries and hoping the Mets have a good backup plan in place.