In his career, Niese has thrown 179 innings to d’Arnaud, nearly a full season. His performance with d’Arnaud as his battery mate has been significantly better than without. With d’Arnaud, he has a 3.22 ERA and a 3.05 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Without d’Arnaud, his ERA rises to 4.04 and the strikeout-to-walk ratio drops to 2.59.
The splits are even more noticeable this season, albeit in a smaller sample — a 2.49 ERA in Niese’s four starts with d’Arnaud, less than half his 5.02 mark to Kevin Plawecki and Anthony Recker.
Source: Maggie Wiggin, MetsBlog
It’s an interesting theory. Too bad his four horrible starts last year didn’t come when d’Arnaud was in the minors or we might really be on to something here. Still, it’s nice to see someone suggest that d’Arnaud is good at something besides pitch framing.
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I remember early in the season Niese was getting frustrated at his battery mate and they frequently couldn’t find a good rhythm and disagreed on pitch calling. I thought that was TDA, but perhaps im mistaken.
Maggie is an excellent writer, and I think she has great insights. I wonder if TDA has similar impacts on the other pitchers at all.