Brandon Nimmo had made it clear since the beginning of last season that he was interested in remaining a Met.
But once he became a free agent in November, he did his due diligence in conducting meetings with other teams that lasted up to four hours each as he forced himself to think about what his career and life might be like elsewhere. Besides the financial aspect, he wanted to know how those teams were going to try to put a winning product on the field year in and year out.
Once that process wrapped up at last week’s winter meetings, it crystallized where Nimmo wanted to be.
“That’s always a huge motivator in free agency is, where can I go and compete for a World Series title?” Nimmo said Thursday. “The great part is I didn’t have to go anywhere.”
So Nimmo’s agent, Scott Boras, informed the Mets that the center fielder wanted to come back and the team reciprocated that feeling, resulting in an eight-year, $162 million deal that the sides agreed to last week and officially announced at a press conference on Thursday at Citi Field.
Nimmo’s contract includes a full no-trade clause and puts him in position to become just the fourth player in franchise history to spend his entire career (of at least 10 years) with the Mets, potentially joining Ron Hodges, Ed Kranepool and David Wright.
“It feels good to put this jersey back on and know it’s not coming off,” Nimmo said as he buttoned up a blue No. 9 Mets jersey before taking photos with his wife Chelsea, general manager Billy Eppler, manager Buck Showalter and Boras.
Keeping Nimmo in Queens solidifies center field and the top of the order for the Mets, who have seen their former first-round pick improve each year he has been in the big leagues. Nimmo has emerged as one of the top defensive center fielders in the game while batting .281 with a 133 OPS-plus over the last three seasons.
The Mets have also appreciated what Nimmo brings off the field, which is part of why they were willing to give him the second-largest contract (in total value) in franchise history, behind Francisco Lindor’s 10-year, $341 million extension.
“One of the things we talk about when we extend a longer-term deal to a player is, can we trust him with the contract?” Eppler said .”Can we trust his intentions? Can we trust the type of player, not only what he brings on the field, which is All-Star ability on both sides of the inning, but can we trust the intentions? Can we trust the heart of the player?”
The Mets answered yes, but their actions leading up to signing Nimmo helped seal the deal. Before Nimmo turned his full attention to the Mets, they had re-signed Edwin Diaz, then made another splash by landing Justin Verlander and also signing Jose Quintana to bolster their rotation.
“[Steve Cohen has] made very clear that he wants to win and he wants to win now,” Nimmo said. “He’ll do whatever it takes to get to that point. Actions speak a lot louder than words and his actions have definitely backed that up. It’s safe to say that it’s been a different atmosphere around here, especially with bringing in Buck as well.”
The Mets drafted Nimmo 13th overall in 2011 as an 18-year-old from Wyoming whose high school did not have a baseball team. Now, he has a chance to solidify his legacy with the same team over the length of his new contract.
“Being drafted out of Wyoming, a lot of chances had to be taken on that,” Nimmo said. “To be able to give me all the tools that I needed to hone that raw ability through the minor league system to now, here we go, now we’re signing this contract and going to be in New York for the rest of our career and wanting that to culminate in a World Series, you can’t draw it up any better than that.”
