Brandon Nimmo is genuinely one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t afraid to tell you exactly what he thinks. As a key clubhouse leader for the Mets for the better part of the last decade, Nimmo believes in accountability, whether that means holding his teammates accountable, himself or even the media.
After being traded from the Mets to the Texas Rangers this week in a shocking blockbuster, the veteran outfielder seemed to have some pointed comments for the Mets brass. The 32-year-old didn’t hold back when he talked about his level of surprise when David Stearns, the club’s president of baseball operations, asked him to waive his no-trade clause last week to facilitate the acquisition of second baseman Marcus Semien.
He was clearly emotional, knowing he was going to say goodbye to the only team he had ever known. But while thankful for the fan support and his years with the Mets, Nimmo also seemed to appear somewhat slighted at the way the club approached the trade, saying the Mets made it sound as though the best thing for the team moving forward was for him to approve the trade. It’s not what you want to hear as a franchise cornerstone.
Later in the week, Nimmo made an appearance on MLB Network, using a term Stearns uses often: “run prevention.”
The Mets cited run prevention as one of the reasons for the trade. His defense in left field has declined in recent seasons, and Semien is an elite infielder. But the way Nimmo saw it, run prevention isn’t always on the defense — it’s on the pitching staff too. With the Rangers, he sees a team already set up to prevent runs.
“The pitching is really the first thing that you need to have,” Nimmo said. “Some guys like to call it ‘run prevention’ when you combine the pitching with the defense. What I saw was, that is already there and you’re not losing a lot of pieces of that.”
This wasn’t necessarily a shot at Stearns, rather, this comment was based on his conversations with Texas general manager Chris Young. But if Nimmo wanted to take a shot at Stearns, he could make an argument that the team was not set up to prevent runs the way it was constructed last season. The pitching struggles have been well-documented and the injury issues numerous, but still, Stearns didn’t exactly go big when it came to filling out the starting rotation last season.
But what’s done is done. Nimmo is moving on, as are the Mets, who will next see him in September during a series in Arlington. It’s bittersweet for all involved.
“There really are no words to fully express the all-encompassing love and support that I always felt from the New York Mets fan base,” Nimmo said. “Whatever the results were, they always appreciated the way that I went about the game, the way that I hustled, and the person that I was. And that will never go away…
“It was 14 years that I spent in the Mets organization developing relationships. There are fans that I met in 2011 that I still interacted with all the way up to the end of last year. It’s something that I will definitely miss. It’s one part of my life and a chapter that is over, and that’s always sad. I will always remember the Mets fans fondly.”
