For the whole not being an All-Star thing, New York Mets outfielder Brandon Nimmo sure has been playing like one this season.
Consider this just one more reason why the whole selection process is flawed.
The 31-year-old veteran is having a career year as he is on pace to smash every high in each major offensive category.
In his first 86 games, he was slashing .252/.366/.466 with 16 home runs and 59 RBI. That put him on a full-season pace (153-game trajectory) of 28 home runs and 104 RBI. Compare that to his previous career-highs in home runs (24 last season) and RBI (68 last season) and Nimmo’s evolution from a conservative lead-off man to a legitimate power bat is taking another step forward.
The offensive boon has been supported by a torrid stretch of late. Not only had Nimmo homered in each of his last three games entering Thursday night — the first time in his career that he has done that — but he hit an entirely different level of production over his previous 22 games. From June 15 to July 10, the left fielder batted .337 with a 1.145 OPS, nine home runs, and 27 RBI. To put into perspective how good of a stretch that is, that is a 162-game pace of 66 home runs and 199 RBI.
He added three more RBI with a bases-clearing, two-out double in the fifth inning of Thursday’s matinee against the Washington Nationals, making it 30 RBI in his last 23 games.
It has catapulted Nimmo toward the top of most major offensive leaderboards in the majors. Amongst all outfielders in the National League, his 58 runs scored rank first, his 16 home runs and 59 RBI rank second behind Teoscar Hernandez of the Los Angeles Dodgers. His fWar of 3.1 and wRC+ of 141 ranks third behind Hernandez and Jurickson Profar of the San Diego Padres.
Both Hernandez and Profar are All-Stars while the likes of other Padres like Fernando Tatis Jr. and Jackson Merrill’s are noticeably behind Nimmo’s production. Yet both of them received invites to the Midsummer Classic.
Go figure.
“I thought I had a pretty dang good shot, so I was pretty surprised when I wasn’t on there,” Nimmo admitted. “Statistically speaking, I’m pretty truthful with myself. A lot of the categories that matter, I’m up there.”
