Brandon Nimmo was convinced that he was going to be a Mets lifer, from draft pick to his No. 9 joining the rest of the retired numbers atop Citi Field.
That all came to a crashing halt on Sunday when the Mets and president of baseball operations David Stearns traded him to the Texas Rangers for veteran second baseman Marcus Semien, bringing a 14-year run with the organization to an end.
“It definitely took me as a shock,” Nimmo said. “We had built this life centered around that we were going to be New York Mets until the very end.”
The 32-year-old left fielder, coming off a career-best 25-home-run season, had a full no-trade clause built in his contract, which had five years and $102 million remaining.
Semien’s limited no-trade clause had the Mets as one of his approved teams, meaning the entire deal hinged on Nimmo.
“I needed to know that the Rangers were committed to trying to win a World Series,” Nimmo said. “That this wasn’t a rebuild that I was coming into. That this was somewhere that I was extremely wanted and was somewhere that I felt like we would be competing for World Series titles year in and year out. [Rangers president of baseball operations Chris Young] made that abundantly clear.”
His former teammate, Jacob deGrom, helped grease the wheels of the deal. The veteran right-hander, who won two NL Cy Young Awards with the Mets, left in free agency to join the Rangers ahead of the 2023 season.
The two are as good of friends as you’ll find in the majors, having been locker-mates for years in Queens.
“He has nothing but amazing things to say about the Rangers,” Nimmo said. “He’s been on both sides, and he has absolutely thrived in this environment. He thinks that we are capable of winning a World Series.”
Nimmo’s departure is expected to be the first of a litany of significant moves made by Stearns, but dealing the homegrown product was not easy for seemingly anyone involved with the organization.
