There was a surprising announcement before Tuesday’s Mets victory, as the needed to make room for an extra reliever to deal with some heavy bullpen use. Corey Oswalt came up, and Brandon Nimmo … he of the .600 OBP in his small sample size … went to Vegas. It left the Mets with four bench players and nine relievers for Tuesday’s game, and now that Zack Wheeler is up, Oswalt is back down to Vegas and the shuffle has left Nimmo out in the cold … or the desert heat of the Pacific Coast League.
As much success as the Mets have so far, I still think they need to somehow find regular playing time for Nimmo at some point, and they just can’t do it now, so Nimmo is down. With lefties going for the Marlins on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Mets felt that getting him down now can get him some regular playing time while the Mets can take advantage of the extra reliever (which they didn’t use anyway). Nimmo’s batting eye and swing need to stay sharp, thus he’s now a 51 and will put up Playstation numbers for a few days … after which he will catch up to the team in San Diego, probably. It makes sense geographically, right?
It’s a numbers game, and not a demotion. Nimmo understands this. But the Mets will have some interesting decisions coming up, especially with Jason Vargas coming back. Does Wheeler go back down? Does Lagares get traded? Does somebody inevitably get hurt? Will the Mets finally realize that Jose Reyes taking up a roster spot just to be Amed Rosario’s friend was a huge mistake? Even though it may make some sense now, Nimmo needs to be back soon and the Mets need to find a way to optimize his talents. The Mets can’t just go by the old adage “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Screw that. Add a light fixture or a second bathroom.
The last thing I want to see is Nimmo be marginalized and pigeonholed into a part time player, like the purgatory Wilmer Flores seems to have been locked in. Nobody is saying Nimmo will be a Hall of Famer, but while Nimmo is blossoming into his own, he deserves a real shot to get semi-regular playing time, at the very least. Luckily, he seems to have the right manager to figure it out. Let’s hope.
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