Rangers key offseason acquisition’s season is being crushed by bad luck

Can Brandon Nimmo catch just one break this season, please? The Texas Rangers' key offseason acquisition in the Marcus Semien deal with the New York Mets has amazing power statistics on Baseball Savant, but doesn't have the numbers to match. He has been the victim of more than a little bad luck that, if it were to turn and go his way for a while, would make his overall production at the plate look completely different.

As it stands as of Saturday, July 18, Nimmo is having what you would call a "typical Brandon Nimmo season" with a slash of .266/.332/.427. His 22 doubles, 4 triples, and 9 homers, along with his 56 singles and 30 walks, are good for a 119 OPS+. But man, if he wasn't hitting it right at defenders almost all the time, he would be making Chris Young look like a genius for making the deal this winter.

Brandon Nimmo's season has been solid, but bad luck has robbed the Rangers outfielder of something truly special

Baseball Savant may be the most useful site not only to uncover all of a player's advanced metrics, but to fully understand what they mean. Take Nimmo, for example. He ranks in the top 94th percentile in a slew of categories, including xwOBA, xBA, xSLG, and Hard-Hit %. He also ranks in the 91st percentile in Avg. Exit Velo, while sitting in the 84th percentile in barrel rate.

All these metrics clearly show that Nimmo has been crushing the baseball all season long, but just hasn't found the holes in the defense. It's the wOBA number of -0.049 that is the key indicator of Nimmo's bad luck so far this year. wOBA measures the variance between what he should be producing and his actual stats, which shows that he has been hitting the ball hard and directly into bad luck. He could just as easily have a .900 OPS with 54 RBI instead of his current .759 and 37. According to Savant, his average would be hovering around .295, 29 points higher than what it is now. His SLUG should be around .520 - almost a full 100 points higher than it is.

Nimmo was the hero of Saturday's 7-6 comeback win over the Braves with a hard-hit, two-RBI single that put the Rangers up 7-5 in the top of the 6th inning. It feels like Nimmo too often gets overlooked among the fanfare surrounding Joc Pederson's comeback season, Corey Seager's injuries, and Wyatt Langford's unlimited potential, but the former Met is making the best, most consistent contact of anyone on the team.

Most importantly, he has been available outside of missing three games because of a shoulder injury from running into the right-field wall several weeks ago.

If Nimmo can keep barreling the ball like he has been all season, the second half could look a lot different for the Rangers' offense and would boost the team's chances of either winning the AL West outright or claiming a wild-card berth. In the meantime, start hitting 'em where they aren't, Brandon.

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