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Mets’ Brandon Nimmo enters spring training with fresh way to ‘measure your success’

Feb. 13, 2023
Mets’ Brandon Nimmo enters spring training with fresh way to ‘measure your success’

PORT ST. LUCIE — Brandon Nimmo is relieved to have reached the point in his career where only wins and losses matter.

With the security of the eight-year contract worth $162 million he received from the Mets in free agency this winter, the 29-year-old outfielder doesn’t have to fret about an ugly performance, slumps or injured list stints. He has arrived for spring training knowing he will likely be a Met for the rest of his career and can concentrate solely on the big picture.

“There is definitely a weight off your shoulders,” Nimmo said Monday after a workout at Clover Park. “You don’t have to do the business of baseball anymore and you just get to focus on playing the game. That is definitely a relief. … You don’t have to focus on how many walks you had or whatever. You either win or lose and that’s how you measure your success.”

For Nimmo it’s been business as usual since receiving his new contract. That meant working out five days a week at the Mets complex since mid-December — after he signed his new deal — until the last two weeks, when he added a sixth day to his regimen.

Nimmo appeared in a career-high 151 games last season and produced a .274/.367/.433 slash line with 16 homers and 64 RBIs while providing the club with a leadoff presence and solid defense in center field.

“You highlight the things you did last year that helped you stay on the field and repeat those,” said Nimmo, who only once previously had appeared in as many as 140 games.

Absent from that equation is the World Baseball Classic. The Mets are sending stars such as Pete Alonso, Francisco Lindor, Jeff McNeil and Edwin Diaz to the tournament, but Nimmo decided against playing for Team Italy. Among the factors he weighed was returning from the tournament in 2017 with a hamstring injury that kept him sidelined into the regular season. Nimmo also cited Team Italy’s bracket (with games in Taiwan) as restrictive.

“I just felt like that’s a risk I can’t take: signing this contract, being with this team and the way that Steve [Cohen] has set it up, I would really kick myself if something happened,” Nimmo said. “In order to be prepared for [the WBC], I would have needed to start a month earlier and I am hoping that we’re playing well after this regular season ends. I’m hoping to add a month to a month-and-a-half of a season after this. We just felt this was best for the team if I did not.”

Nimmo appeared in a commercial promoting the Mets that aired locally in New York during the Super Bowl and said he received positive feedback. The commercial begins with Nimmo in uniform running to answer an office phone, screaming, “I got it! I got it! I got it!” Others appearing in the commercial included Lindor, Diaz and Tomas Nido, with Kodai Senga on a video screen.

“It gives me appreciation for what goes into a 30-second commercial,” Nimmo said. “I think I was there for five hours and was probably in the commercial for like 10 seconds, if that … I thought [the commercial] was very Steve-esque, like, ‘Heck yeah, we’re going big-time. We’re going with the Super Bowl commercial,’ and I was proud to be a part of it.”

If Nimmo has changed any since receiving his new contract it’s in his choice of transportation — he says he “splurged” and bought himself an Audi RSQ8. He had previously been driving a 2010 Nissan Altima that his parents gave him when he was still in high school. Nimmo says he is keeping the Altima, which has roughly 75,000 miles on it.

“Maybe I will take her to New York and drive her into Opening Day for old times’ sake,” Nimmo said. “The nostalgia of the car is worth more to me than she probably is [in dollars].”


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