Tomas Nido Continues Strong Bid for More Playing Time

About a month and a half into the 2021 season, New York Mets catcher Tomas Nido has been quietly putting together one of his best offensive seasons in the big leagues thus far.

With newly signed starting catcher James McCann struggling, Mets manager Luis Rojas was asked about Nido’s playing time moving forward prior to Monday night’s series opening matchup with the Atlanta Braves.

The second-year skipper said that Nido has been really impressive on both sides of the ball, has been putting together some great at-bats thus far, and certainly could see some more playing time moving forward.

Nido received the start behind the plate on Monday night in Atlanta, and yet again took full advantage of the opportunity at hand.

The third year backstop picked up three hits for this first time in his career, including a clutch leadoff double in the top of the seventh off of left-hander Max Fried. A batter later he came around to score the Mets’ first run of the game, of course, on a McCann pinch-hit RBI double.

Nido added an opposite field single in the top of the eighth, and later came around to score and make it 3-1 on Johneshwy Fargas’ first career hit. He finished the day 3-for-4 with the double and a pair of runs scored, the only out he recorded was a hard line-out to Dansby Swanson at short.

Postgame, he told reporters via Zoom that this early season success has been great, and it just comes down to all of the hard work and preparation he put in over the past two off-seasons.

“I think it goes back to last year and the work I put in. What’s put together on a daily basis builds up to what’s happening now. The good ones you build on, the bad ones you take away so you know how to adjust,” Nido said following his big night at the plate.

Nido, more known for his defense to this point in his career, worked on his swing with Lorenzo Gardmendia and the Gradum Baseball team for the second straight offseason. He showed improvements in a very small sample size in 2020, and thus far in 2021 the results have been there.

Over his past twenty games, Nido is hitting a crisp .278 with a .350 OBP, 869 OPS, a homer, and nine runs batted in. He has now increased his on-base percentage to .353, and has a .820 OPS over thirty at-bats on the season.

On top of his strong performance at the plate, Nido has been getting the job done behind the dish as well. The fifth-year backstop currently ranks in the 98th percentile in pitch framing, which is a significant step-up compared to McCann, who is in just the 37th percentile.

“I know I’ve done everything possible so that every time I go out there to play, I know I’ve prepared as much as I could,” Nido said. “For me, there’s no excuse. I know I’m going to produce, when given the opportunity I want to be ready.”

Nido’s increased offensive production has been an extremely pleasant surprise to this point. Hopefully for the Mets’ sake he can keep this up and help keep them afloat while some of the big pieces of this offensive core get healthy.