Nimmo trusting process amid tough-luck start

This story was excerpted from Anthony DiComo’s Mets Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

NEW YORK -- As Brandon Nimmo watched yet another ball die at the warning track Monday night at Citi Field, he did something uncharacteristic, ripping off his helmet while still on the basepath. The exceedingly polite Nimmo’s patience was wearing thin. He was tired of putting charges into balls and watching them fall short of the fence.

“I don’t take my helmet off often,” Nimmo said afterward, noting his frustration. “But it’s just not good enough. I’ve got to hit it better, got to be better.”

Does he though? Entering this week, Nimmo was, by one statistical measure, the least fortunate hitter in Major League Baseball, with the largest “unlucky gap” between his expected slugging percentage and his actual mark. Although he’s since evened that out a smidge, with a home run Monday and two hits on Thursday, Nimmo still isn’t quite getting the results that the data suggests he should.

“You’re frustrated that you’re not getting rewarded for the good process that you’re taking,” Nimmo said. “But you have to take solace in the good process and focus on the process and know that eventually, you’ve got to hope that over a six-month season, things -- they don’t always even out, but they’re going to turn around.”

Thanks in large part to his 22 walks and .365 on-base percentage, Nimmo is not off to a terrible start. His OPS through 30 games is .725 and his league-adjusted OPS+, which controls for factors like ballpark environments, still pegs him as an above-average hitter. But Nimmo has yet to enjoy the same level of success he did last season, when the typically steady center fielder clubbed a career-best 24 homers with an .829 OPS.

On paper, rotten luck is the only real explanation. Nimmo is hitting the ball harder on average than he did in 2023 with a slightly increased launch angle. He’s barreling pitches more often than he did a year ago, and plate approach is as keen as ever; Nimmo is actually walking at a higher rate while striking out a bit less.

His expected stats, which judge the likelihood of hits based on exit velocity and launch angle, are the best of his career. (That’s where the expected slugging percentage numbers come from.) Internally, Mets hitting coaches have told Nimmo that his target numbers should be exit velos of at least 95 mph with launch angles between 24 and 35 degrees -- a slightly modified version of what Statcast defines as a barreled ball. So far this season, Nimmo has hit nine such barrels. Three have been homers. The other six? Fly-ball outs on or near the warning track.

“We’ve had a couple headscratchers here, particularly at this park,” hitting coach Eric Chavez said.

Chavez and Nimmo both suggested that Citi Field plays more like a pitcher’s park when the weather is cold in April, then becomes fairer as temperatures rise. But it still doesn’t explain the “unlucky gap” that continues to bog down Nimmo’s stat line. He’s aware of it. He’s pored over the numbers while fighting the daily urge to tinker with an approach that, statistically speaking, is working.

“I just keep telling myself, and I just keep telling some of the guys around me, that I’m going to get hot as a firecracker here pretty soon,” Nimmo said. “It’s building up. But day after day, it gets more and more frustrating.”