14
2011
Mike Puma: Nimmo’s Father Says There’s Still Some Work To Do
An article by Craig Lerner
Updated by Joe D
Mike Puma spoke with Brandon Nimmo’s father Ron who say’s Mets and his son are no closer than they were in June.
[blackbirdpie url=https://twitter.com/#!/NYPost_Mets/status/102845104976445440]
[blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/#!/NYPost_Mets/status/102844838378094592"]
Not sure if these quotes are legit or if Puma misquoted him. (sarcasm)
Original Post 3::00 PM
According to Adam Rubin of ESPN NY, a Mets official expressed confidence a deal with first-round pick Brandon Nimmo, a high school outfielder from Wyoming, will be completed and announced by Monday night’s deadline.
The Mets have until midnight on Monday to sign Nimmo or lose him. The Mets selected the 18 year old outfielder with the 13th overall pick in the June amateur draft.
, the Mets selected 18 year old OF Brandon Nimmo, a left-handed power from Wyoming.
Varying reports say that the left-handed power prospect wants a signing bonus somewhere between $2.5 and $3.5 million dollars, and that the bonus has been the main sticking point to finalizing a deal.
Last year, 2010 first round selection Matt Harvey signed the day before the deadline for $2.5 million.
For more on Nimmo read on…
Kevin Kernan of the NY Post has a great piece up that you’ll certainly want to check out. Kernan catches up with Nimmo at his home in Wyoming, and it’s quite apparent that there’s more to this kid Nimmo than the fact he had no baseball program at his school or that he was a big reach by the Mets.
First of all, Nimmo exudes confidence and tremendous raw ability.
“I definitely think I’m ready for pro ball,” Nimmo says. “I’ve got a good support system with my family. I’m excited. Playing baseball is what I love, that’s been my dream ever since I was a little kid. I want to make it to New York as quick as possible and please everyone in New York and be an All-Star and be all that stuff everyone wants from their first-rounder.”
That definitely goes beyond the standard clichés you get from players after they’ve been selected. Nimmo sees himself as a future star and isn’t afraid to tell everyone.
One thing that was a bit eye-opening was a quote by Post Six American Legion Coach, Tagg Lain, who sees Nimmo as ultimately becoming a cross between Paul O’Neill and Josh Hamilton. He also makes this claim:
“I’ve coached Bryce Harper in the Tournament of Stars,” says Lain, who has coached 18 years and has won nine of the last 10 American Legion state championships with Post Six. “That’s when I told tournament officials that I’ve got a guy who is that close to Bryce. There is not a huge gap between those two guys.”
Think about that for a minute…
Mets exec J.P. Ricciardi sees big things in Nimmo’s future.
“There’s so many things to like about him,” says the Mets J.P. Ricciardi, the former Toronto GM who is special assistant to Sandy Alderson. “But I really like the fact that he is so smart. That’s going to go a long way.”
Nimmo was somebody that Paul DePodesta and his scouting team desperately wanted. They knew he would be a reach when the Mets selected him with their top pick (13th overall), but they were convinced he wouldn’t be there by the time they selected again and they were not going to let him slip through their fingers. I totally respect why the Mets went this way.
There is a lot too like and to be excited about.
About the Author: Craig Lerner
I'm a data analyst and researcher for a leading news agency who loves life and is hooked on the Mets. I love following the Amateur Draft and have a particular fondness for the Mets Minor Leagues who I follow each day. Give me a cold beer, a summer day, and a Mets game, and I'm good to go.
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If this Nimmo kid becomes ANYTHING like Hambone, O’Neill, or Harper, I hope that they’ll be people here ready to eat crow after all this hoopla about DePodesta and how he can’t draft good players.
I still can’t get over how over the moon ecstatic some Met “fans” were when we drafted Nimmo thinking he was a big time reach. Now he may not make it but considering how many traditionally good drafting teams were disapointed to see him off the board so early at least it makes me feel we were drafting for true talent for a change instead of mediocre talent and the ability to get up here quicker and cheaper.
The Royals, Rangers, Braves, Red Sox and NYY like him and they all have a well developed scouting infastructure and boast top 10 farm systems. I can’t remember ever hearing of teams unhappy that a guy we drafted was off the board.
Bring him to Citi Field on an off day and see if that raw power can reach the cheap seats-just curious.
I’m not particularly sold yet but I wish him only success with the Mets.
Me either Satish. However, I’m hoping he signs so I can see him play in Brooklyn firsthand this summer.
“I wish him only success with the Mets”
Agreed. Success for him and I will go one further. Success for every prospect Mets have in their system.
Why is he being compared to Harper when Harper hasn’t made it to the majors yet?
He is just comparing them from a prospecting standpoint. Harper is probably the biggest hitting prospect since A-Rod and the coach is trying to say Nimmo is almost on that level of being a top prospect. That part had no major league implications involved.
bryca harper??? ohhh, that cocky “i havent been in the majors yet im a superstat” kid from the nationals??
again, he’s a met, we have to like him, not sold on him, specially if bradley turns out to be a stud and we’re stuck with more crap.. wish him and fullmer luck, but again, not really buying what the saber heads in our FO have done so far for us
I know you hate the FO in general, and don’t like them new fangled fancy stats, but what the hell does Nimmo have to do with sabermetrics?
If anything, he is a complete anti-saber type pick. That is, he is being drafted based on raw talent and tools (as in, scouting on stuff). A saber pick would have been a maxed out college hitter with a high OBP but nothing else.
now, will he bust and whoever Bradley is be a star? maybe. Just as possible that it is reversed. or they both flame out, given that is what prospects tend to do!
Except for the fact that saber metrics have little to do with scouting. Amateur scouting is about potential. That’s why Nimmo was so attractive. He had the the 3rd highest upside in the draft. The highest was already off the board and the 2nd highest was Bell, who sent that letter to the scouting board.
Nimmo was predicted as a late first rounder not because of talent, but signability. He was rumored to be looking for close to $3 million. Looms like the Mets will shell out around $2.5 for him when he signs.
Well said, Donal.
alex68…you’re not very bright, are you?
ANY’s right Alex. Nimmo and Fulmer were drafted based on the projection that we would never be able to get our hands on them if they were in the draft 3 years from now and fully developed college stars.
Take a look at any list you want of the best players in baseball and more than half signed out of high school. That’s the kind of talent we have been passing up every year for the last 14 years. The top 20% (on pure talent) get skimmed off the top and into teams farm systems instead of college and then everyone gets a crack at the remaining 80% in three years but you can never build a teamfull of top talent picking just once a round. You have to take some chances and get that talent into your system before it becomes a top 10 pick in the first round.
True your going to bust more frequently (well we won’t because of the staggering number of early round busts over the Phillips/Duquette and Minaya era’s) but the one’s that hit, hit HUGE. That’s what we need to do. Extract the most talented high school kids, pay them to come out early, and then develop them patiently and get their best years in our uniform.
Just in our division alone the players who signed out of high school are the one’s putting up the big numbers. Hanson, Heyward, Freeman, Venters, McCann, Howard, Rollins, Hamels, Lee, Josh Johnson, Stanton, Uggla, Sanchez and that doesn’t even include the IFA’s who can sign at 16.
Going over slot to extract the most talented high school players is a very smart philosophy that goes against what was in moneyball but is exactly what is needed to inject pure talent into the system.
The Mets have had AWFUL scouting for many years, so unless something has changed, I can’t get too excited just yet. Plus, the kid’s only 18. One positive note: they didn’t call him a 5 tool player. That’s immediate bad luck for any Mets’ prospect!
Wasn’t Alex Ochoa branded a 5 tool player?
So was Alex Escobar. We got an aging Roberto Alomar for him. Lastings Milledge too!
i’m not going to 2nd guess the Alomar signing because the year before he was signed he hit a career high .336 so nobody expected him to sink to .266 and if anyone says they expected it they are lying.
Well it was in the steroid era but yeah not too many people would trade the crown jewel of the farm system for a 34 year old 2nd basemen and expect it to be a rousing long term success.
Alex Escobar had a world of talent. 1998 he Crushed the Sally League as a 19 year old. Missed the entire 1999 season with injury and then Farm Director Jim Duquette had him skip A+ and go directly to AA where he crushed the Eastern League as a 21 year old. 2001 he had a good year in AAA and hit 3 HR’s for us in just 50 AB’s while playing CF and RF. Two months after the season he was an Indian.
Looked to all the world he was going to be a star for years.
There just wouldn’t be any kind of explanation for this type of trade except someone trying to save their job for another year by scuttling the franchise and the fact that Escobar did not make it doesn’t change the thought process behind the trade one bit. Second basemen historically do not age well. Very very few guys have played well deep into their 30′s. Escobar at the time was thought of as a guy who would go to the All Star game 10 years in a row. No way that’s worth 2 years of a 34 and 35 year old Alomar, especially when all you’ve ever done is take what you inherited out of the farm for RIGHT NOW and never put anything back for LATER ON.
Did Steve Phillips know how bad his back was? It’s possible but I highly doubt that was behind the trade and considering some of his other boneheaded gaffes with trading young Major or minor leaguers like Izzy, Jason Bay, Melvin Mora and Nelson Cruz, this trade reeks of Phillips MO.
In the end up very few people would have thought it likely that Alomar duplicates his 2001 season through the last two years of his contract and they were right. He not only played poorly, he played like a pussy. He also acted like a pussy. Got all upset when the Mets wouldn’t hire his friend. Lobbied through the press for an extension. All in all it was a blockbuster trade that went no where for either team, although it could have been substantially different.
It has been extensively reported that Reyes was on the table in this deal but that the Indians just didn’t have enough info on him (trade occurred in the off season) and went with the closer, better known crown jewel of the Mets minor league system.
Phillips was inches away from being known as the guy who traded Jose Reyes.
One thing I was always amazed at. The idea behind playing a 34 year old Alomar at 2B next to Mo Vaughn at 1B. What a dope. It also seems like every GM that off season came calling with a whole pile of junk they wanted to sell and they brought it all to Phillips front door where he bought it all and the next thing you know, voila. “The worst team money could buy part 2.”
One thing I really respect about Minaya is that he didn’t try to strip the farm bare in his final years like Phillips did in a desperate bid to save his own skin while causing the franchise to crash.
He was. Off the charts talent. An arm that could throw a guy out from RF at 3B like Vladimer Guerrero used to do. Had about an 8 year career as a 4th-5th OFer. He just could never hit the slider curve or change up.
Still a good trade though. Deadline deal for Bobby Bo while dismantling “the worst team money could buy part 1.”
Now, if we just hadn’t reacquired him…….
wait a second? This kid Nimmo or Nemo is in a position to negotiate???
Sure. Draftees can negotiate. How do you think signing bonuses are attained?
Nimmo has all the leverage if you ask me. Mets need to ante up.
no, i’m sorry
No kid in his shoes has NO leverage when it comes to becoming a major league baseball player. Especially him. Times sure have changed, man.
Times haven’t changed. It’s been this way for 46 years.
Yes. He gets the same rights as every draft pick ever in the history of the MLB draft.
Only since 1965 though.
He’s 18yrs old. Can we at least wait until his balls drop before we make predictions.
Get him signed and pray.
Same old, same old, if reports are true that nothing has changed since June, so then what has FO been doing all this time while waiting for tonight to come?
What a way to jerk fans around when you knew ahead of time what kind of money he was asking for.
If he gets the money then what is the reason for all the drama with waiting till the last minute or is this a Wilpon negotiating tool? “Sarcasm intended”
Does anyone really think that Nimmo really wants to go to school vs starting his baseball career as early as Harper did? Just saying.
His value would skyrocket if he re-enters draft and is selected out of a big baseball college. Definite top 5 pick.
No it wouldn’t. He’s being offered right now the biggest bonus he ever will be for one reason, he has baseball options beyond MLB, namely College.
If he were to go to college, get drafted he doesn’t have too far he could move up from #13 and with no leverage will be offered slot, take it or leave it.
This is called “posturing” on the side of Nimmo’s father.
It’ll get done tomorrow. The two sides have obviously been talking…he’s not going to agree to anything yet, considering only 7 of the 33 first round picks have actually signed. If he signs, he sets the bar for every other pick around him. Ain’t gonna happen.
The FO has done nothing since they drafted him, I mean there has nothing to be concerned about this team, nothing at all, since that point, so I’d assume they just play golf and poker all day.
It takes 2 sides to negotiate. You’re assuming it was the Mets who were stalling. It is really in the Mets best interest to get Nimmo signed and off to either complex league or maybe Kingsport so he has a little experience under his belt.
I’ve also heard of teams having players go to places like the Cape Cod league for a little while so they can further evaluate them before they sign them. I doubt that happened here, but you never know.
What the heck have they been doing for 2 months?
I love the fans that just assume, because the one kid is not signed yet that the FO is just doing nothing at all, because running the team isn’t that much work right? Arm chair GM’s at their best.
Most of these deals are done at the last minute. They spend maybe 72 hours negotiating them. From what I’ve heard, some of these already have deals in place, MLB just doesn’t allow them to be announced until the end for some odd reason.
Nimmo has 2 things going for him. He has a full ride to Arkansas and his “advisers” (agents) are probably telling him Alderson doesn’t want to blow his first draft pick right off the bat.
He’ll get his money and the Mets will get a high ceiling prospect.
wow, already minor leaguers don’t wanna sign with this team.. just wow…
So, you have decided not to learn anything about the process.