Mack - 2015 Prospect List - #8 – OF – Brandon Nimmo

My rankings is solely subjective and based on nothing more than what is in my head at time I’m writing this. I’ve followed the Mets minor league players for many years and I feel I can recognize talent at various levels of their development. What I have failed at is how to determine when this talent seems to diminish. It’s amazing how many first round picks never make it in this game.

I’m old school, so you won’t seem much SABR-discussion here, I do research and, when I find a good quote or two, I’ll add them to my analysis, but, like I said in the beginning of this post, most of this us subjective.

Let’s get started.

#8 – OF – Brandon Nimmo – 21-years old – 6-3, 205 – L/R – Cheyenne East HS (WY)

                                   1^st round 2011 draft –

                       2011 – K/Port/GCL – 38-AB, .211/.318/.368/687, 2-HR, 4-RBI

                       2012 – Brklyn – 266-AB, .248/.372/.406/778, 6-HR, 40-RBI

                       2013 – Sav -  395-AB, .273/.397/.359/756, 2-HR, 40-RBI

                       2014 -  StL/B-Mets -  467-AB, .278/.394/.426/820, 10-HR, 51-RBI

What did they say about Nimmo at the time of the draft –

           Keith Law -               Nimmo's high school in Cheyenne, Wyo., doesn't have a baseball team, so he spent the spring playing with his American Legion club after opening eyes all last summer on the showcase circuit.

He has strong hands and good hand-eye coordination, with a frame that looks built for some future power if he can get a little more rotational. He has the arm to play right field and has shown good speed in the past, although he's been bothered this spring by tendinitis in his right knee, which is the same knee he had ACL surgery on in 2009.

The biggest problem for scouts, however, is the fact that Nimmo won't see high-quality pitching this spring. His swing looks good, but evaluating his plate discipline or ability to catch up to better velocity will be tough.

First of all, we are now entering the ‘Elite Eight’ on this team. Most of these guys could be interchanged from ranking #2-8 (#1 stays the same), so don’t think that I have lowered Nimmo here to #8. I just have some other guys that, in my mind, have past him on the list.

As you can see from above, not much was said about Nimmo at draft time because not much was known about him. I was very vocal about the pick, not because of the player’s talent but because you just don’t take a chance and use your 13^th overall pick on someone who never even played high school baseball (he also lived in Wyoming, not a mecca for baseball talent so even the American Legion pitching he faced was sub-par compared to high school pitching in States like California, Georgia, and Florida).

Given all this, the boy’s done well.

I’m drawn to two facts… one, he hit .322 for St. Lucie (227-AB) last year… and he hit a combined career high 10 home runs for St. Lucie and Binghamton last season.

We’re so used to players going in the wrong direction as they climb affiliate levels. This isn’t happening here.

Outlook –

The Michael Cuddyer signing might be the best thing that ever happened for Nimmo. The Mets 2015 outfield is set and there is no reason to rush things here. He really needs some more time at the AA level, which would set him up to finish the season in Las Vegas.

We’ve written before that he’s living in Port St. Lucie during the off-season, working on conditioning and muscle development.

I’ll give him a safe, conservative ETA of opening day 2017 which would fit perfectly with Cuddyer’s departure.