ARLINGTON, Texas — Brandon Nimmo compared the end of his time with the New York Mets to a marriage in which one partner no longer wants the other. He made the comparison in an interview with Steve Gelbs of SNY, the Mets’ television home, posted Wednesday.
The interview came a day after Nimmo played against the Mets for the first time. New York beat the Texas Rangers 6-3 on Tuesday night at Globe Life Field. Nimmo went 2-for-4 with a run scored and was charged with an error in right field that allowed a run to score in the fourth inning, and he told SNY that hearing Francisco Lindor announced to the plate in the first inning felt weird.
Last November, the Mets traded Nimmo to Texas for second baseman Marcus Semien. Nimmo spent the first 1,066 games of his major league career with New York. He said Wednesday that he had to come to terms with giving up the individual accolades and everything he had pictured for his future with the Mets, and that he first addressed the decision back in spring training.
“I spoke to this back in spring training and when the decision was made, in a marriage, you don’t really want to stay with the partner that doesn’t want you anymore, right?” Nimmo said. “And wants to move on. And I didn’t want to force them into, well, no, I’m staying, so just figure it out. If I felt like that was the best decision for all of us, then yeah, we would have tried to make something work, but it wasn’t at the end of the day. And so I had to come to terms with all of that, the individual accolades, anything that I had envisioned with the Mets in the future. And so for me, it just reminded me, hey, the future is a constantly moving thing.”
“We can try and plan the very best we can, but ultimately there is a part of it that you can’t control,” Nimmo continued. “And you need to just live in the present, be in the now, enjoy it. You never know how long it’s going to last. And so for me, there was just more lessons to learn from it than this grief and anger and everything. It was just like, OK, this is what’s in front of us. We go somewhere that we’re wanted and we’re thought of for the future. We can still win there. Or you stay somewhere where you’re not wanted. And they really have other plans in store for their future.”
Brandon Nimmo Waived No-Trade Clause To Complete Marcus Semien Trade
The trade required Nimmo to waive his full no-trade clause. Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns brought him the possibility of a deal on a Thursday, and by that Sunday night Nimmo was a Ranger, MLB.com reported at the time. Before waiving the clause, Nimmo reached out to Jacob deGrom, his longtime teammate in New York. He also spoke with Rangers president of baseball operations Chris Young about whether Texas was committed to competing for a World Series.
The Mets drafted Nimmo 13th overall in 2011. He is playing on the eight-year, $162 million contract he signed with New York in December 2022.
Nimmo credits baseball with preparing him for the decision. The game has taught him the same lesson every year since he was young, he said.
“And so, for me, it became an easy decision at the end, and I just had to be OK with that was the give and take of it,” Nimmo continued. “And fortunately, baseball has actually taught me that really, really well, is that if I’m going to gain something, I’m usually giving something up. And rarely in life do we just get something and there’s no tradeoff for that. So baseball taught me that very early on and has continued to teach me that each and every year. And so I think it was a great thing, another life lesson that people usually get from sports.”
“And that’s one of the reasons that sports are so great, right, is it teaches us life lessons,” Nimmo added. “But it was just reinforcing that, that like, OK, so we’re going to give up some of these things, but then we’re going to gain some of these other things. And that’s just life. You have to make decisions on, OK, if we go this direction, we’re giving this up. If we go that direction, then we’re giving this up. There’s no even trades in life.”
Texas Rangers Tied With Houston Astros With Five Games Left
Entering Tuesday, Nimmo was hitting .260/.325/.407 with 14 home runs, 61 RBIs, and 34 doubles in 149 games, and his 148 hits led the Rangers. Semien entered Tuesday hitting .219/.285/.341 with 14 home runs and 48 RBIs in 134 games for the Mets. He went 0-for-5 with a run scored in the series opener.
Tuesday’s loss dropped Texas to 78-79. The Houston Astros beat the Mariners 7-0 in Seattle later that night and pulled back into a tie with the Rangers for first place in the AL West. Each team has five games left, and Houston holds the tiebreaker after going 9-4 against Texas this season.
The Rangers and Mets play Wednesday at 7:05 p.m. CT at Globe Life Field, with right-hander Nolan McLean (11-10, 3.18 ERA) scheduled to start for New York. The series ends Thursday at 1:35 p.m. CT, and Texas closes the regular season with three games at the Minnesota Twins beginning Sept. 25.
