As of today, the current the Mets outfield is stacked overflowing with too many options to sift through. They don’t have a true center fielder at the moment, but they have a surplus of corner outfielders–especially after moving Dilson Herrera for the privilege of employing a third left-handed corner outfielder in Jay Bruce.
However, this surplus is going to become something significantly less in the coming seasons. Yoenis Cespedes could be departing after this season, with Bruce and Granderson likely following suit after 2017. Juan Lagares has been relegated to something of a fourth outfielder, and has been battling injury issues. This puts a lot of emphasis, and importance, on the futures of Michael Conforto and Brandon Nimmo.
The Mets could keep both Conforto and Nimmo, move one (they almost moved Nimmo in the Bruce deal), or move both, but their decisions regarding these two players will have a non-trivial impact on the future of the franchise. It is taken for granted that Conforto is the far superior talent, with Nimmo seen as less of a true building block. However, with Conforto struggling this season after his mighty (and brief) rookie campaign and Nimmo mashing in Triple-A, some people are beginning to question this conventional wisdom. Taking a deeper look into each player’s recent performance should give us some clarity regarding their respective futures.
Conforto
Conforto has struggled this season to the tune of a .221/.301/.415 triple-slash line, and that at one point earned him a demotion to the minor leagues. This is coming after a fantastic rookie season in which he took the league by storm, producing a .315 TAv.
To make matters worse, Conforto hasn’t been better since returning from the minors. All small sample size caveats apply, but since his return to the Mets on July 18 Conforto has hit only .216/.326/.324 with zero homers. These are not good signs, and are especially depressing considering Conforto absolutely dominated April–he slashed .365/.442/.676 during the first month of the season.
However, standing back a little bit–and looking at the whole picture–gives us a fairly positive outlook on both Conforto’s time in the majors and his future as a major league ballplayer. Over a career 480 plate appearances–still less than a full season–he has hit .241/.315/.452, good for a .290 TAv. This, combined with his surprisingly solid defense, is a fairly positive result from any 23-year-old. If we could go back to the day before Conforto was called up in 2015, his performance to date would probably be a pretty reasonable expectation. Considering his production to date, age, and the love he gets from scouts, it is no wonder that Conforto is still considered an extremely important piece of the Mets’ future.
Nimmo
Brandon Nimmo has been around for, seemingly, forever. Drafted in 2011 as a raw high school pick out of Wyoming, Nimmo failed to live up to any kind of hype in his first couple of years in professional ball. He did “break out” some during 2014 at Single-A, hitting .322/.448/.458, and has had an excellent overall season in Triple-A this year.
His Triple-A slash line of .336/.409/.517 really does look quite impressive on first glance. However, not only has he produced this line in the incredibly hitter-friendly PCL but he’s also done it on the back of a .392 BABIP as opposed to any kind of notable growth in power. Keeping this in mind, his season to date appears less promising than it may look on first glance from a statistical perspective.
Furthermore (while a very small sample size) Nimmo has struggled mightily during his time in the majors thus far. In his 20 games in the major leagues he has struck out almost 27 percent of the time, while batting less than .240 with virtually no power. Taking the entire package together, things don’t look too promising for Nimmo. Advanced projection models, like ZiPS and Steamer, see him as a below-average offensive contributor at the moment. He’s still young (younger than Conforto by about a month), but an offensive game without much power leaves Nimmo in a tough spot.
It seems clear that Conforto is the superior player now and into the future. Considering the Mets don’t have much cost controlled possible offensive stars in the pipeline (save, maybe, Amed Rosario) Conforto seems like the type of piece they should try to hang on to. Nimmo, on the other hand, may be the type of limited-ceiling player that could work well as a cog of a more favorable trade. If Nimmo stays, the Mets probably shouldn’t be counting on him as anything more than a part-time player–not without his value, but certainly a far less valuable piece than his elder counterpart.
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