When the New York Mets lost Juan Lagares for the season, especially after his outstanding start this year, it was surely just as much as a gut-punch to the organization as it was to the fans.
The 29-year-old Dominican native had finally appeared to have matured into the complete player the team had projected him to one day become. That wishful scenario will have to wait until 2019 to unfold, but the Mets’ outfield nonetheless still has a decent chance to be just as productive as they would have been with Lagares in the mix.
As long as Yoenis Cespedes comes back from the disabled list at 100 percent and stays there (for the most part), Brandon Nimmo keeps being Brandon Nimmo, and Michael Conforto continues to swing himself out of the understandable late-start he found himself in, they will be in good shape. Even with Jay Bruce‘s recent struggles, Lagares’ absence and lost productivity should be easily overcome.
Nimmo was the team’s first-round draft pick in 2011 (No. 13 overall) out of East High School in Cheyenne, Wyoming, a school that didn’t even have a baseball program. The teenage version of Nimmo (which must have been an even greater ball of energy and awesome to have seen at the time) impressed Mets’ scouts enough that Sandy Alderson & Co. felt he was worthy of that high of a selection, and he’s beginning to show exactly why.
After 71 at-bats this season, the 25-year-old holds an on-base percentage of .435, which leads the team but doesn’t qualify among the league-leaders due to the infrequency of his playing time (fourth in MLB among hitters with more than 50 at-bats). Now that Lagares is out of the picture, as disheartening as that is, it elevates Nimmo into the fourth outfielder’s spot and, until Cespedes returns, into the starting lineup on an everyday basis.
His presence in the Mets’ lineup has seemingly had a joy-inducing effect on the team (just look at the life he brings to the Mets dugout, come on), and, more importantly, he seems to always find himself in the middle of the action when something’s cooking for the good guys.
His 15 runs scored rank sixth on the team and he’s had less than half of the at-bats that team leader Asdrubal Cabrera has (159 in 41 games). Plus, Mets fans young-and-old nearly all absolutely adore him.
Michael Conforto worked his way back from major shoulder surgery to make his debut on April 5; well ahead of the original “May” projections we were hearing. After an opposite-field homer in his first at-bat of the season on a blustery day in Washington, Conforto hit only .220 with a .661 OPS for the month of April with that first homer being the only one he hit.
Maybe that May prognosis was more accurate than we thought. Since going hitless in his first 14 plate appearances this month with one walk, Conforto is slashing .314/.351/.600 with three homers, seven runs batted in, and a respectable seven strikeouts in 35 at-bats. This is more what we were looking for out of the homegrown wunderkind.
Jay Bruce (.234/.309/.372 with just two homers in 137 at-bats) will surely snap out of his funk at some point. He seemed to be doing just that after hitting .309 with a .858 OPS from April 20 to May 7 but has just four hits in 24 at-bats since.
Hopefully, he’s now getting back into his rhythm after taking a paternity leave from the team last weekend. He had three hits and drew a walk in twelve plate appearances this past weekend, for whatever that’s worth. Once the power returns for Bruce, this writer believes the rest of his game will come along with it.
The New York Mets’ outfield cupboard may look a bit bare at the present moment, but once Yoenis Cespedes returns, the rest of the Metsies’ grass-roaming cylinders will, hopefully, all be firing as well.
