Nimmo, the Mets' Top Draft Pick, Adjusts to a Faster Game LUCIE, Fla. - The player the Mets drafted with their top pick last year is unfailingly polite, but that doesn't mean he lacks self-confidence. In a brief conversation with reporters in the press room at Digital Domain Park on Wednesday afternoon, the top draft pick Brandon Nimmo peppered his conversation with "Yes, sir" and "No, sir," while shooting down suggestions that his lack of high school playing experience had put him at a developmental disadvantage. Wyoming, his home state, does not sponsor high school baseball. "I don't mean to sound cocky," he said. But I feel like I'm advanced, where I'm supposed to be. I know that some people think that taking me in that No. 13 spot was maybe a little high, but I don't feel that way. Nimmo, a center fielder who played American Legion baseball, will turn 19 in March and is still a few years from being major league ready. But he suggested he had all the tools to succeed. "I can handle this," he said. I feel like I'm advanced in a lot of areas. I learn very quickly and well, and I take instruction well. I'm working as hard as I can, and I'm ready to go. Nimmo said he trained this winter at the facilities at Arkansas, where he had committed to play before being drafted by the Mets. He was trying to bulk up, he said, and ended up gaining 12 pounds in five weeks of workouts. For all his confidence, Nimmo was honest about the eye-opening experience of his first professional games with the Mets organization last fall. He recalled smacking a ball up the middle in one of his first at-bats last year and running down the line presuming he had a base hit. Then he saw the shortstop glide across the diamond and throw him out by two steps. "I said: "Oh, goodness. This is a little faster,"" Nimmo said. All aspects of the game, he said, including the pitching, were faster: "The ball moves more, it comes in faster, the velocity is deceptive. It's all things I'm sure everyone deals with. But for me, it was a big difference. Nimmo said he was not tempted to speculate about the timetable for his progression through the Mets" system. Honestly, how predictable is baseball? Nimmo said.