Reese Kaplan -- When in Doubt Call a Plummer

Yesterday we looked at the future for Brandon Nimmo, a quality player who seems to have injuries and health problems interfering regularly with his ability to remain available to play the game for his team.  IL stints are nothing new to Mets fans as they currently are seeing seemingly half the pitching staff as well as outfielder Travis Jankowski on the shelf with a variety of issues.  It's challenges of this type that open the door for unforeseen opportunities for players who were never really thought to be essential parts of the current or future roster.

One recipient of time on the field is former St. Louis Cardinals number one draft pick Nick Plummer.  Like Nimmo, Plummer has been the unfortunate victim of health problems throughout his minor league career which caused his drafting organization to lose patience and concede defeat on their former first rounder.  He was not put on the 40-man roster and Plummer elected to test free agency.  Not only did the Mets come calling, but they offered the young man a major league roster spot which is what he'd wanted from the Cardinals all along.  Having been selected the 23rd player in the 2015 draft, it's been a frustrating seven years for the man, but his itch finally got scratched a week ago when the Mets brought him up from Syracuse.

It's not fresh news anymore but Plummer jumped into the fray with a pair of home runs in his first couple of games.  Overall he's off to a .444 start going 4 for 9 with 5 RBIs to go along with those two long balls.  It's the kind of start all teams had hoped to see from Plummer and for the man himself there's got to be a sizable dose of "Gotcha" when thinking about how his career ended with St. Louis.

To be fair to the Cardinals front office, Plummer didn't exactly explode out of the gate.  His 2015 output was at a .228 level without showing much power.  He then went on to miss the entire 2016 season due to surgery for hand. 2017 wasn't much better, ending with a sub-Mendoza batting average which suggested that either the injury wasn't completely healed or he just wasn't as good a player as scouts had hoped.  When 2018 and 2019 produced similar results, the 2020 COVID hiatus for minor leaguers couldn't have come at a better time for the man.  

Fully healed heading into 2021 he was up to showing folks what he was capable of doing.  Starting off in AA he had a three home run game and was the minor league Player of the Month when he turned in a 24 game period of .326 with 6 home runs and 21 RBIs.  He was eventually promoted to AAA where he finished the year a combined .280/15/54 in 386 ABs.  While it's not necessarily eye popping performance, it was certainly what they'd expected when they made him $2 million wealthier with his first round bonus money.  Yet the Cardinals must have felt it was too little too late and he was pushed out the door.  

In 2022 for Syracuse the batting average suffered but the power increased dramatically.  He was hitting a modest .250 but had clubbed 6 HRs and drove in 21 in 99 ABs.  Extrapolated over a full season and you were looking at a 30 HR/100 RBI guy.  When the injuries hit hard the Mets already had him on the 40-man roster so it was an easy transition to bring him to Citifield.  

Now you can't go too bonkers over a 9 AB trial facing major league pitching, but it sure looks as if there was some good scouting done by the Mets front office when they reached out to Plummer to become a part of the Mets organization.  No one knows what to expect of him in the future, but the modestly sized 5'10" Plummer is demonstrating he's got a lot of thump in his bat.  It's been a fun few days seeing him make his major league debut.