Mets catcher Travis d’Arnaud has gotten off to a brutal start. It’s early for sure, but the 27 year old has just two singles in 23 plate appearances. In fact the lone big hit to come from a catcher this season was courtesy of backup Kevin Plawecki, who may soon warrant more playing time if d’Arnaud doesn’t start hitting his weight.
Last season, though limited to just 67 games due to injuries (a broken finger, and later a sprained elbow), d’Arnaud showed strong signs of being a breakout star. He slugged 12 homers and 14 doubles in his abbreviated season. Had he played enough games to qualify, his .825 OPS would have been second among Major League catchers, behind only Buster Posey. And this was no fluke. The once highly touted prospect who we acquired in the lopsided RA Dickey to Toronto trade (that also netted us Noah Syndergaard), hit 13 homers and 22 doubles in 108 games in 2014, his first full season in the big leagues. After last year, it seemed like our young backstop was on his way to becoming an All-Star.
Even WFAN’s Mike Francesa raved about him. Imagine what this kid could do in a healthy season, everyone wondered. There was even premature talk of trading Plawecki. And the team was quick to let go of our other backup, Anthony Recker.
d’Arnaud’s throwing improved significantly last season, as he nailed 14 of 43 base stealers for a respectable 33 percent clip, topping his 28 percent rate from the previous year. However, in the playoffs, d’Arnaud seemed to forget how to throw and runners were successful stealing in all 11 attempts. This proved especially costly in the World Series when the Royals seemed to run at him at will.
“I wasn’t able to slow the game down,” d’Arnaud explained to NY Daily News writer John Harper. “The game sped up on me. I didn’t do what I did all year and I was trying to do more than I should.” While he was talking about his playoff throwing struggles, he could just as easily have been talking about his early 2016 hitting woes.
Thus far, d’Arnaud seems tentative, like he’s just trying to draw a walk. He’s looking at fastballs and trying to check his swing on breaking pitches. At times, he’s looked overmatched by fastballs. In any case, let’s hope a little work with Kevin Long and some warmer weather can help d’Arnaud find his swing. We need his bat in the lineup.
Why is this writer picking on d’Arnaud when the whole team is struggling to score runs? Curtis Granderson has gotten off to just as bad a start, but he’s notorious for slow starts. Yes he’s hitting below .100 after eight games, but he hit .231 last April and just .196 the April prior. That’s no excuse, but at least we’re pretty sure he’ll come around. Yoenis Cespedes and David Wright seem to have found their strokes just as most of the rest of the lineup lost theirs.
The collective slumps that Met lineups seem to go through year after year (with the possible exceptions of 1986 and 2006) are confounding. The lineup gets tweaked in the offseason, yet the results are the same. Meanwhile, of course Daniel Murphy began the season like a bat out of hell for the Nationals, helping fuel their fast start. And of course, Starlin Castro, who we were rumored to trade for many times over the past two years, is hitting like a machine for the Yankees. No sense in pulling our hair out. We have to play the hand we’ve been dealt.
Eight games is a very small sample size. The poor Braves and Twins won’t go 0-162. Daniel Murphy won’t hit .500. Trevor Story won’t hit 150 home runs. Zack Grienke won’t have an ERA north of 10. And the Mets will eventually get a few of their hitters on track and start scoring some runs. And with our pitching staff, it doesn’t usually take more than a few to win a game.
Non-story. I guess you just had to write something for today. Slow starts, slumps, even bad years are part of baseball. If you are writing this in June then there is a big problem. Right now it’s simply a slow start.
You are talking about six games. I’m sorry, but that’s preposterous.
I don’t think the 8-spot suits him at all. I think he’s an aggressive hitter, not naturally disposed toward taking pitches, working counts. Very: see ball, hit ball, kind of guy.
This notion that Plawecki is somehow, magically, an improvement really bugs me. The guy has never hit. And he has one hit this season, against a drawn-in infield. A ball that was hit so poorly that it barely reached the shallow outfielder in LF. Yet after 8 games, there’s a rumble in the interwebs about getting KP more time.
Last year, d’Arnaud had an OPS above 1100 against LHP. For his career, KP has a BA against LHP below .140. Yet that’s what we saw on Wednesday against the first LHP of the year. Travis on the bench, KP in the game. Poor planning. The Mets are vulnerable against LHP and guys like d’Arnaud, Wright, Lagares, and Flores are part of the solution. A manager must know that.
We are seeing a guy who should be a force on the team, an absolute asset, put in a sub-optimal position by the manager.
To doubt that d’Arnaud can hit at this point is to refute everything we know about baseball, prior performance, etcetera. The guy is a hitter. Just watch him at the plate. It’s evident.
He slugged .485 last season. 27 XBH in 239 AB.
KP slugged .296! 12 XBH in 233 AB. This is the guy we need to see on the field more? Really? Why on Earth?
Weird that you mention his throwing in the WS without stating that he’s thrown well so far in 2016, nabbing 3 runners for a 38% rate. Of course, he’s not on the team for his arm, but it’s nice to see some progress.
Bases are often stolen against the pitcher, and that’s mostly what I saw in the WS. On many of those steals, he didn’t have a chance. But yes, he had a poor WS all around. That’s the fate of many catchers after a long season. TC needed to rest him more, keep him fresh, particularly when it was clear that he was spent toward the end.
Sorry, I don’t mean to pretend that he’s perfect. Or get too defensive. But 6 games! In the stupid 8-spot. A power hitter in front of the pitcher.
James, I loved your comment so much I read it twice! I can write about the guy that bats him eighth, but I promised you yesterday that I wouldn’t bang that drum all year.
A+++
James I agree with you all around with the only exception when you said his fate was a result of a long season which we know he should have been very fresh since his season didn’t really start until August when he finally came back from the DL for good 🙂
I do think that TdA at some point is going to get it all together and become one of the best offensive catchers in the game for a stretch of several years
Matt, I think all players need at least a little support, however, TDA plays for a manager that would rather support a 30 year old journeyman shortstop.
False analogy Gus. Its obvious at this point Cabrera is an asset to this team.
If he could stay on the field and double his 2015 games played to 134 games and could maintain his 800+ OPS then he extrapolates to 24 Homers and 82 RBI’s.
At the least he should be batting 6th but ideally he should be 5th in the order. An opposing pitcher will rarely give him anything to hit from the 8th spot with the pitcher next in the order. This is a poor utilization of personnell.
I am a big Plawecki fan, having seem him rake in the low minors. He was rushed last year because of the TDA injury and should be in AAA perfecting his hitting skills. He too has the potential to be an above average major league catcher.
My assessment is not based on the stats of 6 or 8 games. It’s based on how he looks. Grandy is hitting hard balls that havent fallen. D’Arnaud doesn’t look right at the plate. He looks passive and, at times, overmatched. He’s behind on fastballs and swinging at the wrong pitches.
I’m rooting for TDA and agree that Collins could do a better job with the lineup.
c’mon!!!— guys who are 2-23 never “look good”!!!! …and grandy looks like crap too…what nonsense!!!
Actually, he’s 2-19 w/ 4 BBs. He hasn’t looked good, but had a nice line single against Fernandez on Tuesday night, and I remember another line shot on Monday. I see progress. But, it’s true, he’s looked tentative and unsure; I personally feel like the 8-spot plays with his mind a bit.
Tonight’s lineup is halfway to what I want. Conforto in the 3-slot works for me. Next I’d put Travis in the 6-spot, breaking up Duda and Walker who are both vulnerable to LHP, and sliding Cabrera to the 8th position, where he belongs.
Can’t argue with this. Based on the eye test TdA doesn’t look right. But he has time to straighten out.
Glad some of you get my point. If you’ve been watching the games and not just looking at the box scores you’d agree that d’Arnaud and Granderson are not having the same issues. Grandy’s issue is mainly bad luck (low BABiP) while d’Arnaud is not making solid contact for the most part. As far as Duda is concerned, I am so very tired of seeing him look at a fastball strike only to swing at the next pitch no matter where it is – usually a low in slider that makes him look foolish. Does he know he doesn’t have to to take a called strike one every single at bat?
Does he know he doesn’t have to to take a called strike one every single at bat?
Not just Duda Matt.
For all you box score studiers, who’s the only Mets who didn’t get a hit tonight?