This past off-season, the Mets were killed for passing up on trading Brandon Nimmo for Josh Harrison or Andrew McCutchen. Harrison got hurt early on and McCutchen has been very mediocre early in this season. The two have combined for a bWAR of 1.0 while Nimmo has posted a bWAR of 1.7 in limited playing time.

So far in 2018, Nimmo has showed no signs of slowing down. Back in March, I wrote about how Nimmo looked like he might be able to break out for the Mets. The reasons I cited were his changed stance which put him in a crouched position and allowed him to hit more balls in the air. I mentioned his goal to be more aggressive on pitches in the zone. And finally, I noted his really strong exit velocity on balls hit in the air. Let us take a look at his progress in these departments.

Nimmo’s ground ball rate has plummeted from 43% last year to 30.5% this year. His launch angle is 18.1 degrees this year as opposed to just 9.6 degrees. One of the preachers of launch angle is Justin Turner and his launch angle was 18.3 degrees last year.

Why is this a good thing? Well Nimmo has a paltry .247 wOBA on balls hit on the ground with a 55 wRC+. Meanwhile, he has a .604 wOBA on balls hit in the air with a 298 wRC+. Nimmo has lowered his stance for the last few years and has worked on elevating more pitches. The cherry on top, his exit velocity on balls hit in the air has been a remarkable 96.6 MPH. That is right there among all the elite players in baseball. It is also a 4 MPH jump from his exit velocity on balls in the air from 2017.

Finally, there is the matter of his plate discipline. Nimmo swings at just 21.4% of pitches out of the zone which ranks 26th out of 285 in all of baseball. Last season, that number was also a very elite 17% but this year, he is also swinging at 66.5% of pitches in the zone as opposed to 57% last year. There’s no reason to think why it can’t improve when he continues to play more.

To add it all up, he is hitting more balls in the air and he is also hitting them harder in the air. He has done this while also decreasing his K% and maintaining his elite walk rate. He is clearly becoming something more than just some bench player that some thought when the Mets called him up.

He should keep getting chances to play until he proves that he cannot play and so far, he has not shown any reason to not play everyday. Nimmo’s ability to get on base at a very high rate always made him a fine candidate to start in the outfield but this new power stroke has made him a must play.

I’m not sure how the Mets will figure out this conundrum of four “outfielders.” I’m using air quotes because calling Jay Bruce an outfielder is generous and Yoenis Cespedes isn’t the same defender he was before all the leg injuries. The most realistic option is moving Bruce to first and keeping Nimmo in the outfield while also giving Cespedes and Bruce many days off. Gonzalez has been better than Bruce but benching Bruce due to the money owed to him seems unlikely.

Back to Nimmo though, he has proven to be a very intriguing piece and he must play every single day. I was one of those who did not want the Mets to trade Nimmo this off-season and they are very lucky they did not. Nimmo is part of the solution to fix this team short-term and long-term.