Mets rookie backstop Travis d’Arnaud had somewhat of a split season. There was the season before and after his demotion to Las Vegas. Before, he hit a paltry .180/.271/.273. After, he hit .272/.319/.486 to finish on a strong note.
It’s hard to call 2014 a wild success for d’Arnaud because of the slow start, but it certainly was a step in the right direction, as he began to display some of the skills that had him ranked as one of the top catching prospects in all of baseball for several seasons.
With such wild variation in his performance, let’s have a look and see what the official Mets360 projection for d’Arnaud was, and see how we fared.
PA – 492
AVG – .267
OBP – .340
SLG – .440
HR – 15
RBI – 15
CERA (Catcher’s ERA) – 3.70
All things considered, we didn’t do fantastic, but we weren’t that far off either. Let’s see who was closest and furthest in each category, as well as his actual numbers.
PA – 421
Best: Vasile – 450
Worst: Stack – 555
AVG – .242
Best: Ferguson – .250
Worst: Koehler – .285
OBP – .302
Best: Guilbert & Hangley – .320
Worst: Rogan – .365
SLG – .416
Best: Ferguson – .414
Worst: Kolton – .308
HR – 13
Best: O’Malley – 13!
Worst: Hangley – 23
RBIs – 41
Best: Kolton – 43
Worst: Guilbert – 82
CERA – 3.67
Best: Joura – 3.63
Worst: Kolton – 5.62
We were all over the map when it comes to d’Arnaud. Dan Kolton was not very high on him, seeing a .213/.245/.308 line, but nearly nailed the RBI total right on the nose, just as Scott Ferguson nearly pinned his slugging percentage. Jim O’Malley hit his homerun total perfectly, but Brian Joura, Mike Koehler, Sean Flattery, Dan Stack and Patrick Albanesius all came within one round-tripper either way.
All of our CERA projections were between 3.25 and 3.91, with the exception of Kolton’s.
As far d’Arnaud’s season went against the major projection systems; Steamer, Oliver and ZiPS, it was all over the place, too.
Steamer saw him getting 428 Pas, while Oliver had his batting average at .241. ZiPS projected his OBP to be .307 (with a .245 average), and Steamer was the best for SLG, where they projected he would hit .418. Steamer also projected 13 home runs and 49 RBIs, and would probably have to be called the most accurate projection of the three (and was more accurate than ours as well, for the most part).
I’m sure based off of the way d’Arnaud finished the 2014 season, our projections for next year might be a little higher than they were this past year, and here’s to hoping d’Arnaud will reach them.
TDA hit 13 HR this year. Next year, with hopefully 500+ ABs in the majors and not stinking for two months — 20 HR seems within reach.
If the Mets get 25+ HR from Duda and 60+ HR from TDA, Granny and Wright — should they mortgage the farm for a 30 HR hitter?
Brian, I like where you’re going. 30 HR hitters carry a big price—probably too big for the owners. The Mets should target good hitters (gap hitters), preferably those with some speed and a decent glove. Citifield is made for that type of player.
Ding, Ding! Brian and Norme are my new heroes.
In playing a premium defensive position, it might be worth including key elements like passed balls, throwing out base runners, pitch framing. If he stabilized around the back half of the season numbers with his bat, but could become an outstanding defender he would be a real thing to watch.
Whether by trade or FA signing…. the bigger factor is whether they’re ready or able to write a check for a Major League Ballplayer at SS or LF (or RF if Grandy Switches). They’ve been well beyond merely evaluating the baseball value of trading a young arm for an established bat…. that sort of move seems to be impossible because of the salary obligation that comes with it.
I believe it’s a myth that Matt Kemp would be available, but I would want them to trade young pitching for that level of impact bat. Kemp, Castro—those sorts of players will command some return of talent. Melky or (even) a guy like Morse—they’d need to write a check Can they?…will they????. At SS or OF, they need one move that bolsters the output of their offense. Otherwise, they’re squandering their pitching and another year.
Stay far far far away from Matt Kemp. I wouldn’t be even willing to take on just the contract let alone give them any players. He can’t field, and it’s nearly as bad as Duda, which means unless he hits like its 2011, he won’t be worth the money.
Even if you don’t completely trust defensive stats, the fact that he’s the worst rated OF defensively by nearly every metric for 2014 should indicate to you at the very least that he’s in the bottom 10%. And it’s not just this year, he’s only had only 1-2 OK defensive seasons since he came up, and he’s been in the league since 06…
TdA had the final statistics that I expected but I didn’t expect the way he got to them. His defense was subpar and below expectations. I am confident, going forward, that he will continue to improve and become a very good catcher. I thought he was the runner up to deGrom in the ROY which should put a smile on the face of any Met fan.
One more concussion and TdA isn’t going to be our catcher moving forward.