Travis d’Arnaud has arrived for the Mets

On December 17^th, 2012, the Mets traded R.A. Dickey, the reigning Cy Young award winner, to the Toronto Blue Jays for a package of players head lined by Travis d’Arnaud. Up to that point, d’Arnaud was known for two things: being the unanimous number one catching prospect in Baseball and having been a key piece in the Phillies trade for Roy Halladay. After the Dickey trade was completed, the young catcher had the notoriety of being the only player who had never had a major league at bat to be traded for two Cy Young award winners.

As the season began, the highly thought of prospect succumbed to random injuries the major issue that had plagued his young career. He would go on to play 32 games in the minor leagues and make a less than stellar mark in a 31 game major league stint, where he would post a not so terrific 548 OPS and show issues defensively with passed balls and his throwing.

The Mets, and all of its fans, hoped that d’Arnaud’s poor performance was the result of the injuries that had caused him to miss time in both 2012 and 2013. The Mets made it obvious that they intended on installing d’Arnaud as their starting catcher in 2014, despite his poor performance and injury history. The young catcher’s early season performance in 2014 did not seem to support the faith that the organization had given him. Through June 6^th of the season, over 39 games, d’Arnaud had three home runs, a .180 batting average and a 544 OPS. The numbers were startlingly bad and way too close to his poor performance in 2013, which lead to the words bust and the name Kevin Plawecki crossing Mets fans lips.

Everyone knows what happened then. After an 18 day jaunt to Las Vegas, d’Arnaud returned and slugged a three run home run off of Scott Kazmir in his first game back in the major leagues.  Over the subsequent 68 games, d’Arnaud would show life as a baseball player, hitting the ball with authority, getting on base and knocking in runs. He also had a different look in his eyes, moving from deer in the headlights to confident young star. Over those final 69 games, d’Arnaud would slug 10 home runs, knock in 32 runs, bat over .270 and have a slugging percentage a shade under .500.

As the offseason progressed, d’Arnaud was one of the least talked about players on the roster. On the surface this appeared to be due to how he had rebounded from his annexation to the Las Vegas. However, there is evidence that the lack of attention d’Arnaud received was more a result of a lack of faith in his abilities than in the thought that he had turned his career around. His ability at framing pitchers was argued for, since the rest of his defensive make up was ignored as questionable at best. His offense was barely discussed as they were buoyed by strong numbers late in the year, when statistics are often looked at with a grain of salt due to the presence of expanded rosters and young pitching.

Even the organization didn’t seem to show a whole lot of faith in their young catcher. Some of this was evidenced in the fact that the Mets immediately took on a veteran, hard hitting right handed outfielder in Michael Cuddyer to hit in the middle of the order instead of thinking that d’Arnaud deserved such a chance. The media paid more attention to Plawecki, the Mets top minor league catching prospect and Xorge Carrillo, the Mets second best catching prospect, who tore apart the winter leagues.  Such attention to players who had barely played at Triple-a over a young man who had, only a few years before, been viewed as such a wunderkind that he was traded twice for Cy Young aware winners is somewhat mind boggling, but further evidence that d’Arnaud’s star had fallen.

Some could argue that this lack of attention was unstated confidence, but when d’Arnaud flopped in spring training, the discussion wasn’t about a veteran player going through the motions. In fact, his terrible spring was barely mentioned, as if d’Arnaud’s struggles were a mere afterthought since the Mets had Plawecki waiting in the wings and weren’t going to rely that much on d’Arnaud being a key piece of the lineup.

Well, three games into the season, d’Arnaud’s has been the only consistent producer in the lineup. d’Arnaud has five hits in his first 11 at bats and has knocked in runs in all three games. He has one of the Mets few extra base hits, a booming triple on opening day, and has made hard contact on multiple occasions. He also still stands confidently in the box and has not had any issues defensively, including throwing out his first base runner of the season on Thursday. Yes it’s only three games, but the only way d’Arnaud was going to make people notice him again was to get off to strong start and he has.

The offseason was full of talk about what the Mets would do with Plawecki and when this year the young catcher would debut and take his perceived spot as part of a duo of catchers with d’Arnaud. If the 26 year old d’Arnaud keeps playing like this, he will become the a key point of conversation again and be mentioned along with the organizations young pitching and players like Juan Lagares, as a key piece of this team’s future. Somehow d’Arnaud’s shining star was stained by poor play and injuries. He’s now showing that all of the hype wasn’t misplaced. Travis d’Arnaud has arrived.