The New York Mets are trading outfielder Brandon Nimmo to the Texas Rangers in exchange for infielder Marcus Semien, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported Sunday night. You don’t often see a one-for-one trade involving two players with a combined 66.9 career WAR, but this deal was made possible by the fact that Nimmo and Semien are owed a combined $173.5 million in the future.
The Mets and Rangers are both top-10 payroll teams and recidivism whales in free agency (note, the Mets have a slightly higher payroll than the Rangers), so this isn’t a straight salary dump. In fact, only a pittance of money — $5 million from New York to Texas, according to Jon Heyman — is changing hands. Although this has a lubricating effect, it only accounts for about 5% of the debt owed by Nimmo and less than 3% of the total residual value of the transferred contracts.
Semien and Nimmo have both been great players lately, and it shows in their compensation. Semien signed a seven-year, $175 million contract with the Rangers before the 2022 season; Nimmo, who had a career OBP of .385 and a WAR of 5.5 at the end of the season, signed with the Mets a year later for eight years and $162 million.
While both players have performed well recently, the amount remaining on their contracts (Semeen, $72 million over three years; Nimmo, $101.5 million over five years) almost certainly exceeds the on-field value they might provide in the future. Semien is 35 years old; his offensive output has declined in each of the past two seasons, and while he is a very good defensive second baseman in 2025, it is a step down from what he was in 2023 and 2024 (i.e., an elite defensive second baseman).
Semien also missed the final month of the 2025 season with a broken foot, although that was caused by an unfortunate foul ball rather than some kind of chronic age-related degeneration. That’s encouraging, but when a player of Semien’s age heads to Illinois for the first time in eight years, it’s cause for caution regardless of the cause of the injury.
Speaking of foot injuries, Nimmo spent 2024 and early 2025 dealing with plantar fasciitis, also known as Albert Pujols disease. Whether due to a foot injury or something else, Nimmo has been losing athleticism for the first three years of his contract. In his walking year (well, his running year, considering how free passes Nimmo gets), Nimmo finished at 84 percent sprint speed. This year, his sprint speed is up to 44%.
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Through it all, Nimmo has played in at least 151 games in each of the past four seasons, surpassed the five-stealed base threshold just once in his first eight seasons, and has stolen 28 of his 29 bases since 2024.
But the version of Nimmo the Mets signed in the winter of 2022 needs to be able to run. At that point, Nimmo did the most important thing a position player can do – get on base – very well. Sincerely, he’s one of the best base guys on the planet outside of Aaron Judge, non-Juan Soto, non-space aliens.
Meanwhile, he’s only hit 10 homers twice in a season. He never — and still never — hit .300 or slugged .500. In 2022, he had a career strikeout rate of 22.3%, and three years later, that number hasn’t changed even a tenth of a percent.
In short, this is an average hitter—and “hitter” as used here strictly refers to the hitting portion of the game—whose exceptional on-base talent makes him a very good offensive player. If you’re paying him over $20 million a year, it would be great to use him in the midfield.
Nimmo was never Kevin Kiermaier, but in his prime he was at least equal to the midfield. That’s no longer the case, and athleticism markers have gone the wrong way. Over time, this began to cause problems for the Mets. Soto is not a good right back, but even if he were willing to DH, the Mets would take advantage of the position with Starlin Marte. Pete Alonso should probably be DHing, but he has to play first. Mark Vientous may be the first baseman, but he has to play third. Brett Batty is the third baseman, but he has to play second base. Jeff McNeil may be the corner outfielder, but he won’t be able to play there because of Nimmo and Soto.
What a headache. Despite their stellar defense up the middle, the Mets’ defense ranked 19th overall last season. Apparently, this impasse has begun to resolve itself. Alonso and Matt are free agents, and McNeil just underwent surgery for thoracic outlet syndrome, which could end his dreams of becoming a pitcher. What’s more, McNeil will at least start the season with Illinois.
However, playing alongside Nimmo on the left reduces the team’s options. Meanwhile, Nimmo has been changing his approach to become a more traditional hitter. He’s averaged 24 homers per year since signing, but at a huge cost in OBP. Over the past two seasons, Nimmo hit .244/.326/.418. In 2025, he had a single-digit walk rate for the first time since his 32-game major league debut in 2016. If you look closely, there’s an additional yellow flag or two — most notably, a drop in zone contact rate and an increase in pull rate — but I don’t want to overstate things when Nimmo is clearly in decline.
Quality-wise, he’s just an average guy now, rather than someone who can get in front of Alonso and let him score 100 points a year. Volume-wise, Nimmo is now a 110 wRC+ guy instead of a 130 wRC+ guy.
Personally, I think the downside risk for a corner outfielder to continue to decline over five years is huge, especially when he’s starting from a baseline of 110 wRC+. The Phillies found that out when they signed Nick Castellanos to a contract that was almost identical to what the Rangers would owe Nimmo going forward.
But Nimmo clearly has a keen eye, and he’s already made a major offensive adjustment, and left field isn’t particularly taxing. Regardless, he’s much better than Adolis García, who was not tendered on Friday, has been the past two seasons.
In addition to being two and a half years older than Nimmo, Semien is at far greater risk of his offensive style going to zero. Over the past two seasons, Semien has a .307 OBP and his power has dropped from 29 homers and .201 ISO in 2023 to 15 homers and .134 ISO in 2025. Semien’s contact rate is gradually declining — it was below 80% last season for the first time since 2020 — while he’s swinging and chasing more.
I won’t delve into Semien as much as I did Nimmo, because while Peak Nimmo is a weird player, Peak Semien is easier to understand. In 2023, Semien was a solid defensive presence at second base, posting a 128 wRC+ and worth 6.5 WAR. In 2024, he had a 101 wRC+ and ranked second in elite defense with a 4.3 WAR. In 2024, he has an 89 WRC+, above-average defense, second-best WAR, and a 2.1 WAR. Taking into account the time missed due to a broken foot, perhaps the total from the last war could be pushed up by a few tenths.
There are a lot of valid opinions out there as to whether Nimmo or Semien is better. That’s especially true if you’re talking about how the two will age over the next three seasons.
I? I’d probably choose Semien now, but out of context they have similar value.
That said, context is why the deal was made. I picked Semien over Nimmo for two reasons: First, I value the team-building advantages that come with having a reliable second baseman. You can find a slightly above-average hitter who is more likely to line up in left field than a defensive center infielder with home plate cues.
For the Mets, Semien is a better fit. You could put him next to Francisco Lindor, get a million double plays, and then forget about him until October. The Rangers don’t have the chaos on the left side of the defense that the Mets did last year. And Wyatt Langford, and then…if push came to shove, I don’t think I’d be particularly fond of Joc Pederson or Jake Berg. If Evan Carter is healthy enough to be in the starting lineup every day but not healthy enough to play center, well, you can cross that bridge when you get there.
2. Contract situation. Semien will cost the Mets $26 million in cash and $24 million in CBT value this year; if adjustments for signing bonuses and the Mets’ investment in processing and handling are taken into account, Nimmo will cost the Rangers $19 million annually.
If I were building a team with limited resources (which, to be fair, the Mets probably aren’t), I’d rather go with Semien than Nimmo because getting out of the Semien business would be two years faster and cost about $25 million less overall than getting out of the Nimmo business. The Rangers paid less each year, but so did the Mets over the life of the contract. This brings up an obvious follow-up question: What are you going to do with the money you save? How much of that will be redirected to meet other needs? This is not a sport where cap space is a tangible concept; Every financially motivated decision needs to be guided by the “then what?”
That uncertainty makes this move — as simple as it is — difficult to call so early in the offseason. As pessimistic as I am about Nimmo’s long-term career path, no one can deny that the Mets’ current roster looks very short-handed. By acquiring Nimmo, the Rangers replaced Garcia and improved upon him. But do they have a plan to replace Semien, or are they just robbing Peter to pay Paul?
Ultimately, this trade of useful players with big contracts should make the path forward easier for both teams. In an ideal world, everyone would leave happily.
