Brandon Nimmo wants Mets 'to do well,' believes trade to Rangers was strictly 'a baseball decision'

(Rick Osentoski-Imagn Images)

1 / 2

Brandon Nimmo wants Mets 'to do well,' believes trade to Rangers was strictly 'a baseball decision'

1 / 2

Brandon Nimmo wants Mets 'to do well,' believes trade to Rangers was strictly 'a baseball decision'

2 / 2

Brandon Nimmo wants Mets 'to do well,' believes trade to Rangers was strictly 'a baseball decision'

(Rick Osentoski-Imagn Images)

Former Mets outfielder Brandon Nimmo returned to New York as a visiting player for the first time on Tuesday, and even though he was in the Bronx to face the Yankees, he fielded many questions about his Mets tenure and the current state of the team.

“I want them to do well,” Nimmo said. “I’ve played here before when things aren’t going well, and it’s not fun. I wish the best for them, but also I’m trying to take care of things here and make sure we’re trying to play good baseball here.”

Nimmo, of course, was traded to the Rangers this past offseason in the deal that brought Marcus Semien to the Mets. The trade came just three years into Nimmo’s eight-year, $162 million contract, and he had to waive his no-trade clause to complete the deal.

Nimmo said that he reached out to a lot of people before making his decision, including Pete Alonso, who told him the Mets hadn’t reached out to him at that point.

“When Pete said they hadn’t even reached out to him, there was definitely a lot of uncertainty as to which direction they were going. But ultimately, I had to make other phone calls and talk to other people and deliberate over it for many more days. So, it wasn’t just his conversation that went into it. I talked to dozens of people. It was just a piece of the puzzle that helped in the decision-making process.”

“I obviously would have loved to have seen Pete retire in a Mets uniform,” he later added. “He’s the Mets’ home run king and has all these titles that go along with it. I think that would have been awesome, but it wasn’t in the cards for what they felt like were the best baseball decisions.”

When president of baseball operations David Stearns traded Nimmo and let Alonso and Edwin Diaz depart in free agency, rumors swirled that there was an alleged rift in the Mets’ clubhouse, particularly between Nimmo and Francisco Lindor.

Both players have since said there was no truth to those rumors, and Nimmo said again Tuesday that he thought his trade was purely a baseball move.

“I believe it was probably just a baseball decision. Like I said last year and even in these interviews in the spring, I really didn’t see anything wrong with the chemistry between the guys,” Nimmo said. “And if it was happening, I didn’t know about it, so they were keeping it hush-hush, which is kind of tough to do in a clubhouse where you spend most of the day with each other. But from my standpoint, I think it was a baseball decision, and I think it was something that David felt would better the New York Mets and (general manager Chris Young) felt would better the Texas Rangers.”