Brandon Nimmo is well acquainted with the concept of top ten lists, as he currently ranks tenth in doubles, ninth in home runs, eighth in position player WAR, seventh in offensive WAR, sixth in runs scored,
fifth in walks, and first in smiles across Mets history. Still, the act of choosing just ten moments to represent his ten-year major league career seems a daunting task. After all, the Mets drafted Nimmo at age 18. The Mets promoted him to the major leagues at age 23. The Mets signed him to an eight-year deal at age 29. And the Mets officially traded him to the Texas Rangers at age 32 yesterday morning. Nimmo had been with the organization for almost a quarter of its existence, and he took his first batting practice at Citi Field just months after Carmelo Anthony played his first game at Madison Square Garden.
With emotions settling in the wake of the startling swap, this edition of Tuesday Top Ten will attempt to rank the outfielder’s best days in orange and blue. As with all editions, there must be an obligatory disclaimer that these placements are inherently and entirely subjective. These lists aren’t meant to reach definitive conclusions or stoke incendiary tempers, so we should all take a cue from Nimmo’s approach to Citi Field weather and “try to stay sane,” as he once explained to The Athletic’s Tim Healey. Without further ado, let’s count down this Tuesday’s Top Ten…
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Walk-Off Walk (September 24, 2019)
The night we got the answer to a critical question: would Nimmo still sprint to first base on a walk even if it ended the game? Spoiler: he did.
Breaking the Bank (September 17, 2020)
In this chaotic 2020 classic, Nimmo hit both a game-tying triple and go-ahead home run to propel the Mets over the Phillies.
Subway Series Walk-Off (June 14, 2023)
Nimmo became just the tenth Met to deliver a walk-off against the Yankees, nearly hitting the ball over the right field fence as Eduardo Escobar stormed home to secure a 4-3 victory.
THE LIST
10. Good Fundies (July 9, 2022)
The afternoon of Keith Hernández’s number retirement ceremony was already playing out like a tribute to the legendary ballplayer-turned-broadcaster before Brandon Nimmo stepped to the plate. Pete Alonso, the fan-favorite first baseman, hit a home run in the fourth. Francisco Lindor, the informal captain, hit a home run in the sixth. Don Mattingly, the Marlins’ manager and Hernández’s American League contemporary, got ejected by the home plate umpire in the seventh. In the bottom of the tenth inning, after a Marlins error allowed the Mets to tie the game, Nimmo made the homage complete by hitting a grounder back to Tanner Scott (a pitcher Nimmo has repeatedly flummoxed throughout his career), who crumbled under pressure and threw the ball to the backstop. Good fundamentals, such as putting the ball in play and running hard to first base, defeated bad ones — just as the honoree would have wanted.
It’s no secret that Nimmo hoped to one day have his number nine reside in the rafters among the pantheon of Mets greats. During that magical night, amid a magical summer of Mets baseball, it seemed a definite possibility. While Nimmo would eventually overtake Hernández in hits, home runs, and games played, that ultimate distinction is now almost certainly out of reach.
9. No. 9 Drives In 9 (April 28, 2025)
What do Brandon Nimmo and Carlos Delgado have in common? They’re the only Mets to record nine RBI in a game. Delgado’s accomplishment stands out because of its circumstance, coming in Game 1 of a Subway Series doubleheader on June 27, 2008. Nimmo’s accomplishment stands out because of its concentration, as all nine RBI were collected within a three-inning span. Nimmo hit a three-run homer in the sixth, a grand slam in the seventh, and a two-run double in the eighth as the Mets thumped the Nationals on the road by a 19-5 final.
Only two other left-handed hitters have tallied 9 RBI in a game during the 2020s: Shohei Ohtani and Kyle Schwarber, this past season’s National League MVP and runner-up, respectively. For fans with long memories, Nimmo’s performance might have served as payback for the only such game the Mets have ever been on the opposing end of: Anthony Rendon’s 10-RBI, three-homer masterpiece in the same ballpark almost eight years earlier to the day.
8. The Nimmo Special (October 5, 2024)
Two days after Pete Alonso clobbered his classic ninth-inning homer to clinch the 2024 Wild Card Series, Brandon Nimmo delivered a go-ahead RBI of his own. With lefty reliever Matt Strahm on the mound and the Mets and Phillies tied 1-1 in Game 1 of the NLDS, Nimmo used a short swing to slash an 0-2 fastball through the left side of the infield, bringing home Francisco Lindor and giving New York a lead they would not relinquish.
If that description reads eerily on brand, like the Brandon Nimmo base hit that you’d imagine if asked to close your eyes and picture one, then you’re not hallucinating. Since 2018, Brandon Nimmo has recorded 54 two-strike, opposite-field hits with a launch angle of less than five degrees. No other player has recorded more than 48 such hits in the same span. Nimmo’s first career hit of that particular variety came on October 2, 2016, at Citizens Bank Park, where he would replicate it on the national stage eight years and three days later.
7. In Minter Condition (May 12, 2024)
On the morning of May 12, the idea of Brandon Nimmo having a top-10 career moment that night would have seemed outlandish. The previous afternoon, he had exited a game against the Braves at Citi Field due to an oblique injury which he hoped would only keep him out “one or two days.” The Mets’ outlook was bleak beyond the oblique tweak, if you’ll excuse the Scott Boras-esc phrasing; the team had lost ten of their last eighteen games, falling to nine games back in the National League East and leaving little hint of the “OMG” magic which would soon captivate the city.
But there was Nimmo, stepping to the plate in the bottom of the ninth inning after entering for DJ Stewart during a nationally televised Sunday Night Baseball game. The Mets trailed by one run and had a man on second, with Nimmo attempting to stave off yet another Mets loss. Facing future teammate AJ Minter, Nimmo sent a slider sailing beyond the valiant leap of Michael Harris II, stunning Atlanta and notching the Mets’ second of six walk-off home runs that season (a mark tying a franchise record set in 1962 and matched in 1963, of all years). Nimmo has hit two walk-off home runs in his career, and neither came in a game in which he started…
6. Pinch Yourself (July 11, 2018)
Meet the (2018) Mets: a team boasting the third-most valuable starting rotation in baseball, led by Cy Young Award winner Jacob deGrom, and possessing the second-lowest batting average. The result was games like this one at Citi Field against the Phillies, in which deGrom threw eight scoreless innings and allowed just five hits but exited without a win. The game was still scoreless in the bottom of the tenth, when Nimmo was called upon to pinch hit.
The Phillies had thrown 144 pitches up to that point in the night, and the Mets had mustered just three hits. But on the first pitch Nimmo saw, he drove in three runs. With Mark Leiter Jr. on the mound, Nimmo waited back on a curveball and crushed it just past the New York Lottery’s “Hit It Here” sign above the visitor’s bullpen. Nimmo threw his arms up in joy when the ball landed, beamed his way around the bases, and stayed smiling long after he crossed home plate. It wasn’t Nimmo’s most famous major contribution to a deGrom gem (that entry comes at a more coveted spot on this list), but it was one of the first. As Nimmo now heads to Texas to reunite with his old teammate, it’s likely that we haven’t seen the last.
5. Philibuster (May 5, 2022)
On a seemingly ordinary night at Citizens Bank Park, the Mets entered the top of the ninth inning bound for a seemingly ordinary 7-1 loss. What happened next was anything but ordinary. Francisco Lindor hit a two-run home run to right-center field. Pete Alonso and Jeff McNeil got on base for Mark Canha, who drilled an RBI single off pitcher Corey Knebel. J.D. Davis ripped a fastball down the left-field line to drive in two more.
The Mets had put up a valiant effort, bringing the score to 7-5, but none of that would have mattered if Brandon Nimmo hadn’t come through. The ninth Met to bat in the inning, Nimmo arrived at the dish with two outs and two runners in scoring position. Despite the pressure, he remained measured as ever, plunking a 1-1 curveball into center field to tie the game. One batter later, he came home to score the go-ahead run on a Starling Marte double. It was the franchise’s biggest comeback of the 21st century, and a linchpin moment solidifying the never-say-die swagger of the 2022 team.
4. Game 161 (September 30, 2024)
Brandon Nimmo played a forgotten role in arguably the most dramatic regular season game in Mets history. With both the Mets and Braves vying for the opportunity to clinch a playoff spot in Game 1 of a doubleheader to close the season, the Amazins clawed back from down 3-0 to take a 4-3 lead in the top of the eighth inning. Coming to the plate with a runner on second, Nimmo obliterated a Raisel Iglesias fastball over the Chop House to give the Mets a 6-3 cushion. Even Nimmo, who consistently burst out of the batter’s box on no-doubt homers and walks throughout his Mets career, dropped his bat and stopped to admire the blast.
Nimmo’s hit initially appeared to be the difference-maker in the game, and the cherry on top of a magical second-half run. That appearance lasted about a half hour, as the Mets promptly blew the lead before Francisco Lindor hit the home run that’s likely to be enshrined in the hearts and minds of Mets fans forever. Nonetheless, Nimmo delivered the penultimate blow in the penultimate game of what proved to be his penultimate season in New York.
3. D-Back Comeback (June 17, 2018)
The original Brandon Nimmo moment. The Diamondbacks led the Mets 3-1 with two outs and nobody on base in the top of the ninth inning, but the Mets simply would not go away during this getaway game in Arizona. José Reyes reached first base on a bunt and advanced to second on defensive indifference before Jose Bautista hit an RBI double to right field, putting reliever Brad Boxberger in a pickle. Nimmo now stepped to the plate as both the potential go-ahead run and potential final out.
Boxberger served a center-cut, 82-mph changeup, and Nimmo knocked it deep into the right field stands, smiling wide as he sprinted around the bases. The homer was only the 16th of Nimmo’s career, but it seemed to crystallize his image as a clutch, core member of the Mets lineup moving forward. It was also the first time in nine years that a Met had hit a go-ahead home run on the road while trailing with two outs in the ninth inning, with David Wright having done so in Philadelphia on September 12, 2009. No Met has done it since.
2. Two-Homer Homecoming (June 18, 2018)
Calling a trip to Colorado a “homecoming” for Brandon Nimmo is technically inaccurate, as Nimmo was born and raised in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Nevertheless, when Nimmo arrived at Coors Field the day after his heroics in Arizona, his family made the hundred-mile trek south to watch him face off against his childhood team. They were not disappointed.
On the third pitch of the game, Nimmo sent a ball caroming awkwardly off the tall wall in right-center field. As Rockies mainstays Carlos González and Charlie Blackmon attempted to retrieve it, Nimmo flew around the bases, beating CarGo’s trickling throw and recording an inside-the-park home run (the Mets still have not had one since then). Six innings later, Nimmo pulled another pitch to right-center, this time clearing the fence to secure the second multi-homer game of his career. While the 25-year-old Nimmo was yet to unlock his full slugging potential, the performance (along with its venue) foreshadowed what was to come. With his 135th career home run this past September — unknowingly the final one of his Mets career — Nimmo overtook John Buck’s record for the most homers hit by a baseball player born in Wyoming, an overlooked accolade which The Athletic’s Tim Britton highlighted in his trade analysis yesterday morning.
1. Robbing Justin Turner (August 31, 2022)
What makes this play just…so…beautiful? What makes it produce that tingly feeling as if you’re listening to Brad Pitt in Moneyball or James Earl Jones in Field of Dreams? What allows you to conjure it in your mind, the run perfectly paced and the jump perfectly posed, whenever you wish? What guarantees its spot as the centerpiece of any Brandon Nimmo highlight reel circulating online over the past forty-eight hours?
Perhaps there’s a simple explanation, which is that over the course of eight seconds a viewer can experience some of the most enthralling sights and sounds that baseball has to offer: the ease of a 100-mph fastball dotting the outside corner; the crisp crack of a bat meeting a ball and sending it to straightaway center field; the thud of an athlete running at full speed and jumping with no fear into a padded wall; the white of the ball disappearing into the web of an outstretched glove before it can disappear beyond the outfield fence.
But for Brandon Nimmo, for the 41,000 Mets fans in attendance that night, and for all those now mourning his departure, I think there’s more to the magic of this play. First, it’s hard to miss the unbridled joy which Nimmo exudes from the moment he lands. There’s the fist pump, the scream, the engagement with the 7 Line Army in center field, and the interaction with deGrom, who typically remains expression-less on the mound but can’t help cracking a smile here. It’s a spirit Nimmo brought to every play, every game, and every season regardless of if he was raking, slumping, or battling through injury. It’s exactly the way any of us would act if we got to put on a Mets uniform and things were going swimmingly, but it’s a marker of true professionalism when things are otherwise.
Second, Brandon Nimmo was never expected to make outfield plays compared to those of Juan Lagares or Endy Chávez. He wasn’t even meant to be a center fielder, ascending through the minors and beginning his career as a corner outfielder. Steve Gelbs spoke on SNY Sunday night about Nimmo’s dedication to improving an aspect of his skillset each year, and never was that dedication more apparent than when he put up six Outs Above Average in 2022. After the catch, Ron Darling called Nimmo “the most improved center fielder in the game,” before Cohen suggested amending the statement to call him the most improved center fielder ever. Whether batting leadoff, clean up, or coming off the bench, and whether playing his natural corner outfield position or willing himself to become a plus center fielder, Nimmo always served whatever role the Mets asked him to fill — even in the moment they asked him to waive his no-trade clause so he could be dealt away.
Third, Nimmo’s remarkable grab did more than hold the lead for deGrom and the Mets. The catch paved the way for another star to step into the spotlight, with Edwin Díaz able to enter in a save situation to the sound of Timmy Trumpet’s live rendition of Narco. It’s this dynamic which proves perhaps the most apt in characterizing Nimmo’s Mets tenure. Beyond the entries included on this list, if you revisit any memorable moments of Mets baseball from the past ten years, you’ll find Nimmo — not at the center of attention, but at the center of the action. Hours before the franchise sealed its second no-hitter in 2022, it was Nimmo who quietly but critically snagged a Jean Segura line drive with a .710 expected batting average in the the third inning. Seconds before Pete Alonso’s season-saving home run in the 2024 Wild Card Series, it was Nimmo who brought the go-ahead run to the plate with an 0-2 single up the middle. And the moment David Wright exited the diamond for the final time in 2018, leaving an impossible legacy to follow, it was Nimmo standing in right field to scoop up the following batter’s single, symbolically taking on the responsibility of Mets leadership. Now, Nimmo makes his own exit from Queens — albeit an unexpected one — having accrued the third-most WAR of any Mets draftee, trailing only Wright and Darryl Strawberry. He may not be a lifelong Met, but Nimmo is undoubtedly one of the greatest homegrown players in the franchise’s history.
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