When Brandon Nimmo signed his eight-year, $162 million deal to return to the Mets last offseason, he probably had a few things in mind. He liked the idea of spending his whole career in Queens and possibly getting his number retired, all while eventually winning a World Series in New York.
Becoming the best MLB player ever from Wyoming probably wasn’t on his list. But we can add that to his list of career accomplishments. A Reddit user pointed out that Nimmo’s career bWAR has surpassed Dick Ellsworth to take over the top of this very specific leaderboard.
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Obviously, we can see from the above screenshot from Baseball-Reference that the bar wasn’t super high. Other than Nimmo, only three other players from Wyoming recorded more than 10.0 bWAR during their respective MLB careers. And thanks to the contract he just signed, he’ll also eventually surpass Ellsworth as the longest-tenured MLB player from Wyoming in baseball history.
Nimmo is just racking up honors left and right!
While the Mets disappointed overall in 2023, it’s been a good season for the center fielder in Year 1 of his new deal. Most importantly — he’s stayed healthy. Brandon Nimmo has played in 149 games while racking up 671 plate appearances. That’s led to his third season of at least 4.0 fWAR while slashing .271/.371/.466. Oh, and he’s added on a career-high 24 home runs to go along with 66 RBI and 87 runs scored.
The notable change in Nimmo’s profile has to do with batted-ball events and his quality of contact. His ground-ball rate has improved from 50.5% to 40.6%, while his fly-ball rate has gone from 31.7% to 39.3%. Nimmo’s soft contact has decreased by nearly five percentage points (18.5% to 13.7%), and his hard-hit rate has gone from 30.0% to 38.2%.
Watching Nimmo have a great year while the Mets couldn’t return to the postseason feels like a waste. But, it’ll hopefully be another building block to 2024 for the outfielder. He at least staked claim to the Wyoming player leaderboards this year. So, it wasn’t all for nothing.
You can reach Matt Musico at matt.musico@xlmedia.com. You can follow him on Twitter: @mmusico8.
