Free Agent Poll: Brandon Nimmo

We have used this idea for the last couple of years. The idea is to go through some of the top free agents, using the contract FanGraphs suggests and have a poll to see if we would sign him for that amount.

After yesterday’s trade I figured I ought to skip a few guys and talk about Brandon Nimmo.

Ben Clemens has Nimmo as the number 9 free agent of this off-season, Keith Law has him in the number 7 spot.

Nimmo is 29, and he’ll be 30 at the end of March. This season he hit .274/.367/.433 with 16 home runs, 7 triples and 30 doubles, and 71 walks, good for a 5.1 bWAR (the highest of his career). The 151 games played were also a career-high. Defensively, UZR has him at a -0.4/150 this year, and he was 6.2 last year. So he’d be at least average as a CFer.

Law said (among other things):

The other big question is his durability, a concern since high school when he tore the ACL in one of his knees, which was still slowing his running in his draft year. This year was just the second time Nimmo played in 100 major-league games in a season, and just the third time he played in at least 60 percent of the Mets’ games (including 2020). He’s been injury-prone, which isn’t likely to go away in his 30s; even this year he had a quad strain that didn’t put him on the IL, and has a history of hamstring, knee, neck, finger, and other injuries. He’s a $25 million a year player if he’s healthy, but a five-year deal should factor in the likelihood that he’ll miss 20-25 percent of his games due to injuries, too.

Ben:

But oh, that glorious on-base percentage. Nimmo posted a .367 mark this year, good for 16th in the majors – and also the lowest full-season mark of his career. He takes walks by the bushelful. He rarely strikes out. He gets hit by more than his fair share of pitches. These are all stable skills from one year to the next. In plain English: Nimmo is going to get on base at a ludicrous clip, year after year.

He might not do it in center field forever, but who cares? He can play there now, and he’ll rack up gaudy offensive numbers while doing so. He even demonstrated some power upside this year, cranking 16 homers and posting the highest exit velocity of his career (111.9 mph). It’s not the most traditional profile, but Nimmo will deliver star-level value if he keeps up his current pace.

Ben suggests he’ll get 5 years at $22 million per for $110 million. I wouldn't want to sign him for more than 5 years if they ask my opinion. I think he could handle center field for most of those 5 years, maybe moving to left for the last couple. We would need someone to fill in for him for a few games each year. He does have a history of nagging injuries.