ATLANTA — Brandon Nimmo began spring training determined to grow to be a greater base-stealer.
Six months later, the Mets outfielder considers it a losing battle.
As players across the game have thrived stealing bases, thanks partially to latest rules implemented this 12 months that include larger bases and limits to the variety of pickoff attempts at a pitcher’s disposal during an at-bat, Nimmo has not enjoyed the bounce and has largely stopped trying, despite his well-above-average speed.
The MLB average stealing bases entering Wednesday was a 79.8 percent success rate.
Nimmo stood at 3-for-6 (50 percent).
Last season Nimmo was 3 of 5 (60 percent) in stolen-base attempts.
“I’m just not good at stealing bases,” Nimmo said before the Mets accomplished their series against the Braves. “It’s either instinctive or bad luck, I don’t have any clue. But when I am going, the throw is on the bottom and I’m toast more often than not.”
Nimmo’s most up-to-date foray got here Saturday when he was thrown out attempting to steal second base in St. Louis.
He became only the fourth base-stealer thrown out this season by Cardinals catcher Andrew Knizner in 44 attempts against him.
A confluence of circumstances have dissuaded Nimmo from attempting more steals.
In spring training he jammed his hand sliding right into a base and didn’t need to aggravate it further.
Once the season began, he bruised his knee on a sliding catch in the course of the team’s West Coast trip in April and started wearing a pad.
After which there was the frustration of getting nailed attempting to steal second for the ultimate out of the sport on May 4 in Detroit with the team behind by two runs.
Nimmo admitted that failure led him to further query whether he must be attempting to steal.
“I’m at all times willing to vary, but when the numbers keep telling you this isn’t benefiting the team, that’s when it’s like, ‘OK, we either must abandon it or move in one other direction where, OK, you’re on first base, you’re in scoring position,’ ” Nimmo said. “I’m not saying I won’t take probabilities in the longer term, there is perhaps more times when it is smart and we go, however it’s just that it hasn’t worked out. It’s something we tried working at.”
Though Nimmo’s sprint speed has dropped to twenty-eight.1 feet-per-second this season from a peak of 28.9 in 2021, in response to Statcast, the outfielder still ranks within the seventieth percentile amongst MLB players.
But Nimmo said the difficulty with reference to stolen bases is his relative lack of quickness.
“I’m not the quickest guy on the team, but I’m one in every of the fastest,” Nimmo said. “It’s something that probably with lots more time and homework, if there was lots more emphasis placed on it it’s probably something we could improve, but how much percentage I don’t know. But any time with what we’re doing there’s only so many hours in every day, so there are more vital things.”
If fewer stolen-base attempts means staying on the sphere, Nimmo deems it a worthy trade-off.
“Last 12 months I used to be available day by day apart from 4 or five,” Nimmo said. “This 12 months I hope to as well. For me availability is the important thing.”
