Each year at 213, we take projections from several different places, average them together and then compare the line that spits out to the player’s performance from last year. We understand how unscientific this is – some projections try to guess playing time, some don’t, more playing time is weighted the same as less playing time, more successful projection producers are weighted the same as their counterparts, etc. At the end of the year we revisit the projections and see how’d they do.
In 2018 Brandon Nimmo was one of the best players on the Mets. He had a 4.4 WAR, one of the highest DRC+’s at 123. Expectations were high for Nimmo coming into this season. Nimmo still had a good season, even if Baseball Prospectus has him at a 100 DRC+, which makes him exactly average. Brandon Nimmo played most of the season with injuries and still put up a really solid season. It’s also the exact season that we would expect from Nimmo, a high OBP, low average and a solid slugging rate.
2019 Stats: 254 PA, 199 AB, 8 HR, .221/.375/.407, 0.9 WAR, 100 DRC+
(Citations: BP projections come from the Baseball Prospectus Annual, a must read for all baseball fans and can be purchased here. ESPN comes from their fantasy baseball projections and can be found here. Both ZiPS and Steamer are found on FanGraphs. ZiPS can be found here, Steamer can be found here. BR comes from the Baseball Reference for this specific player and is linked earlier in the article)
So computers see Nimmo making a bounce back a bit from his injury season. A 111 DRC+ is great, they have him gaining points on his average, basically posting the same slugging. What I found interesting is Baseball Reference. BR is usually the most conservative of the projection websites and they have him with an .836 OPS. Nimmo gets on base. Nimmo is also the reason why batting average is a bad stat. If Nimmo is getting on base at a .370 clip, he should be leading off. If he does this consistently, like we know he does, then he needs to play every day.
Like yesterday with McNeil, Nimmo makes baseball fun to watch. In fact all five major outfielders on the Mets (Nimmo, McNeil, Conforto, Cespedes, Davis) are the reason why the Mets are fun to watch. If this group, and Nimmo, are on it this season, then 2020 will be a season to remember.
