Nimmo begrudgingly comes to grips with Mets’ revised timeline to win

Brandon Nimmo got the clarity he was seeking from general manager Billy Eppler on Sunday, after it became clear the direction of the Mets was changing from a “winnow” mode to “win-later.”

But that doesn’t mean he’s happy about it.

“It’s a little bit of a longerterm outlook, which is tough, and different than the conversations we had in the offseason’’ said Nimmo, who signed an eight-year, $162 million deal in December to stay with the Mets.

At the time, Eppler and team owner Steve Cohen were building the most expensive roster in MLB history, signing Nimmo and closer Edwin Diaz to lucrative new deals and adding Justin Verlander, Kodai Senga, Jose Quintana and David Robertson — among others — to the roster via free agency.

“But I get it,” Nimmo said of the stunning about-face, which has resulted in the trades of Max Scherzer and Robertson as the front office came to grips with a sub-.500 record and is now looking to the future and not a playoff race in 2023.

“I get the business side of it. We’ve tried two years of, really, just not caring what we spend and going to get the best players. We won 101 games one year and we don’t know what this year will end up being, but it’s not what we wanted. The unfortunate part is we need to try a different way.”

Eppler said Sunday that different way will include taking a step back from at least the top tier of free agency, while focusing on rebuilding the farm system, steps the team has begun to take with the trades of Robertson and Scherzer in exchange for minor league prospects.

The futures of some other veterans not signed to longterm deals, especially Verlander, are in question, ahead of Tuesday’s 6 p.m. trade deadline.

Regardless of who else departs, the roster for the rest of this season, as well as 2024, will be dramatically changed — as well as younger — than the version they started with this year.

And the expectations will be altered, as well.

“It’s gonna be different,’’ Nimmo said. “The way I look at it, the Marlins weren’t supposed to compete this year and look where they are.”

It was Miami that traded for Robertson thanks to a surprisingly successful first four months of the season that landed the Marlins in the NL wild-card race despite a payroll that’s a fraction of the Mets’.

The Marlins opened the season with a luxury-tax payroll of about $121 million, according to Cot’s Contracts — the sixth-lowest in the majors — compared to the Mets’ $377 million.

And Miami entered Monday tied for the second NL wild-card spot, 6 ½ games ahead of the Mets.