Who Is The Real Travis d’Arnaud?

When the New York Mets traded for Travis d’Arnaud in 2012 he was hailed as an injury-prone catcher with laudable talent. Now, in August 2016, Travis d’Arnaud is probably best characterized as an injury prone catcher with laudable talent. Because of the injuries, it can be hard to remember that d’Arnaud has already played in four seasons with the Mets–and it doesn’t seem as though we know much more about what kind of player he will become then we did four seasons ago.

Unfortunately, because of d’Arnaud’s continued injury problems, the most plate appearances he has ever garnered in a season has been 421 in 2014; leaving his time in the major leagues subject to four choppy blocks of small(ish) sample size. As a whole, d’Arnaud’s offensive production–sans an excellent showing in 2015–has left a lot to be desired.

Caveats aside, d’Arnaud’s season to date this year doesn’t look all that much different than his rookie year cup of coffee. Not only does it seem like we are not any closer to knowing who Travis d’Arnaud is then we were four years ago, it is also difficult to determine just how much Travis d’Arnaud has changed as an offensive player over the last four years.

Looking under the hood, d’Arnaud’s underlying approach doesn’t seem to have varied very much throughout his career. His swing rates have remained remarkably consistent, and his contact rate (and in effect, his strikeout rate) has also been fairly stable. Additionally, his pull rate has been quite consistent from year to year. Travis has basically always swung about 47 percent of the time, struck out about 17 percent of the time, and pulled the ball about 39 percent of the time. In these ways he has been a pretty predictable player.

One change that has occurred this year–especially notable because it is the type of attribute that stabilizes fairly quickly–is the rate of ground balls d’Arnaud has hit. On the season 52.5 percent of d’Arnaud’s batted balls have been hit on the ground, which represents almost a 10 percentage-point increase over his career rate.

This 52.5 percent rate is the 50th highest among hitters with at least 150 plate appearances this season.  This is of great importance because among the 49 hitters above d’Arnaud on this leaderboard only two have been able to manage an ISO over .200 (Ryan Braun and Wilson Ramos). Travis d’Arnaud himself has only been able to manage a .099 ISO on the season. It is extremely difficult to hit for power when you’re putting the ball on the ground at such a high rate. Hopefully this is something of an anomaly for d’Arnaud because it would almost certainly cap his offensive upside. (He’s not the type of speedy slap-hitter who could benefit from putting the ball on the ground.)

The optimistic point of view would hold d’Arnaud’s legitimately excellent 2015 season as his true talent level, with this current edition just hampered by injuries and gritting through the season at something much less than full health. The truth may be something a lot less comforting.

I spoke with our own Jarrett Seidler, to get a feel for d’Arnaud from a scouting perspective. He indicated that, while d’Arnaud is the type of player who often tinkers with his swing, Travis is still beholden to basically the same profile he had when he was a prospect: he should be a good average/power hitter, and a good defender despite not much of an arm. Seidler additionally indicated that d’Arnaud’s frequent injuries may certainly have had an effect on his bat speed and athleticism, which makes logical sense.

Considering that d’Arnaud is catcher, he doesn’t even need his extensive laundry list of injuries to explain his relative underperformance to expectations. It has long been maintained that many young catchers fail to live up to their offensive expectations as a result of the incredible demands of the position; John Sickels has nicknamed this “Young Catcher Offensive Stagnation Syndrome” and has been writing about it for quite some time.

This indicates that d’Arnaud’s offensive stagnation could be tied to the physical demands of his position, and once we add in his remarkable injury history (which involves a herniated disc, a concussion, and a fractured foot and hand) it is easy to see how d’Arnaud could fall victim to a stagnation of his offensive potential and ceiling.

Unfortunately, and somewhat paradoxically, the more time that d’Arnaud misses via injury not only gives him less of a chance to adjust in the majors, reveal his true potential, build off of previous success, or show what kind of player he is, but also decreases his future potential for these positive events as his physical ability deteriorates under the pressure of mass injury. Additionally, his injury woes delay his chance to put together a full healthy season until a more advanced age; d’Arnaud will be 28 next season, and while that’s not old per say, it’s also not exactly young.

It could be that, at this point, d’Arnaud’s best bet (at least in terms of reaching his offensive potential) is to move to a less demanding position than catcher, which could help him become generally healthier and start lifting some balls. That may be the only way he’d be able to stay on the field long enough to reach his offensive potential. Unfortunately for the Mets, it is not entirely clear where they could move him … and they would also be giving up a good defensive catcher and pitch framer. Would he really be a average-or-better first baseman or left fielder?

It seems that the Mets best bet may be to simply roll d’Arnaud out as the starting catcher again next season and hope 2017 is the year he can finally stay healthy for the whole season. If he does that, maybe we’ll see who exactly Travis d’Arnaud is.

Photo Credit: Matt Kartozian-USA TODAY Sports