It's Brandon Nimmo's Turn To Adjust

 

Courtesy of Off The Bench Baseball

   When Brandon Nimmo emerged as a surprise hit, it seemed like he was never gonna slow down. Not only did his mainstream stats look great, but his peripherals and process seemed to check out as well (hit more fly balls with authority, great exit velocity and never chased outside the zone). As a result, he was putting smiles on the faces of Mets fans, and had even more reason to smile himself (as he always does). This all peaked on June 24th, when Nimmo had a wRC+ of 166. The next day, Nimmo got hit by a pitch on his right pinkie finger, and he hasn't been the same.

   That big drop off you see is right after his hit by pitch, but my theory is that its not so much that he has struggled to return to form, but rather, pitchers adjusted to Nimmo. I'm gonna take a different approach than most of the articles I've written and make this prediction before I do any research, and see what comes up. 

   So upon examination, it appears as if pitchers are indeed pitching him differently to a degree. They interestingly enough, have been throwing him more fastballs. He has been seeing 63.6% fastballs since the hit by pitch in comparison to the 55.6% he saw beforehand. This is an unorthodox approach by pitchers, but it makes sense when examining Nimmo's performance against breaking balls. 

Before 6/25	BA	wOBA	ISO
Breaking Balls	0.256	0.375	0.302
Fastballs	0.306	0.449	0.264

   Nimmo was still doing well against fastballs, but overall, he was highly productive against breaking balls (curves and sliders), and adjustments needed to be made.

   On top of pitchers throwing him more fastballs, they have made sure to throw them high, as the average pitch height of fastballs went from 2.51 feet to 2.85 feet. Essentially, he was among the 25th lowest in pitch height before, and now he stands as seeing the 4th highest fastball.

   To build on this point, pitchers have thrown Nimmo a high fastball outside the strike zone (looking for the high chase) 18.9% of the time since the hit by pitch. This is more than double the 9.3 he was seeing before. In this span, Nimmo is 1st in the league among the 256 qualified batters, and it's not even close.

   He hasn't been offering at the pitch much at all (only 10.1% chase, which is second least), but it does set up the other pitches. See, pitchers know that Nimmo has an elite eye at the plate (7th lowest chase rate and his 65.8 Zone swing rate shows he isn't just taking everything) so they are throwing him high fastballs whether they are strikes or not simply to change his eye level.

   It appears that Nimmo's process has never been bad in terms of his discipline at the dish, but the issue is actually making contact. His contact on pitches in the zone was 85.1% before, and since the hit by pitch, it's been a measly 75.7%. For those counting at home, that's nearly a 10% decrease.

   Nimmo also has reverted back to his groundball hitting ways (which isn't terrible, but he was clearly more successful when hitting the ball in the air), and just hasn't been hitting the ball with the same oomph as before.

   

   Going back to his performance against curves and sliders, Nimmo's whiff/swing rate against these pitches has been at 31% during this slide. This is actually lower than the mark he posted beforehand at 36.9%. On top of the still strong .227 ISO he's posted against these pitches, this just hammers home the point that he is a strong breaking ball hitter; even when slumping.

   What it also proves is that Nimmo has just been late on fastballs as of late (no pun intended), and that explains why pitchers have begun to pitch more fastballs to him.

   Now, this is not meant to be interpreted as a "Brandon Nimmo hatepiece", but rather, just a breakdown of his struggles. What this can do for someone like Nimmo is to interpret the adjustments pitchers have made against him, and what he can expect to see when he steps up to the dish.

   I truly believe that Nimmo is a supremely talented player. With his combination of elite speed and even better on base abilities, he clearly can be a star player. Here's a look at all the players that finished within the top 35 in walk %, on base % and top 76 (Nimmo was 76th) in sprint speed the past two seasons.

Player	OBP	Walk%	Sprint Speed
Mike Trout	0.450	19.5	29.2
Cesar Hernandez	0.370	12.2	29.1
Brandon Nimmo	0.374	13.5	28.6
Tommy Pham	0.377	12.2	28.6

   Yep, that's just four players that finished with those marks. If you narrowed it down to things such as the top 40 in ISO as well, you would have just two players, Mike Trout (who when we say is the best player in baseball is a fact now rather than opinion) and Brandon Nimmo.

   I could just end the article there, but it is also important to note that Nimmo is a great fielder, as he is rated by statcast as having been worth 3 runs in terms of outs above average. That would rank in the top 40 among the 231 qualified outfielders, and would be in the 83rd percentile.

   There's no question that Nimmo has the makings of being a potential building block for the Mets, and once he makes the necessary adjustments of properly anticipating the fastball and perfecting his timing, there's no doubt in my mind that he can be the best player on the team in the years to come. Simply put, he's just too talented and too hard working not to be.

All Stats and Information are accurate as of August 7th, and are courtesy of Fangraphs and Statcast data from Baseball Savant