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

However, this surplus is going to become something significantly less in the coming seasons. Yoenis Cespedes could be departing after this season, with Bruce and Granderson likely following suit after 2017. Juan Lagares has been relegated to something of a fourth outfielder, and has been battling injury issues. This puts a lot of emphasis, and importance, on the futures of Michael Conforto and Brandon Nimmo.

The Mets could keep both Conforto and Nimmo, move one (they almost moved Nimmo in the Bruce deal), or move both, but their decisions regarding these two players will have a non-trivial impact on the future of the franchise. It is taken for granted that Conforto is the far superior talent, with Nimmo seen as less of a true building block. However, with Conforto struggling this season after his mighty (and brief) rookie campaign and Nimmo mashing in Triple-A, some people are beginning to question this conventional wisdom. Taking a deeper look into each player’s recent performance should give us some clarity regarding their respective futures.

Conforto

Conforto has struggled this season to the tune of a .221/.301/.415 triple-slash line, and that at one point earned him a demotion to the minor leagues. This is coming after a fantastic rookie season in which he took the league by storm, producing a .315 TAv.

To make matters worse, Conforto hasn’t been better since returning from the minors. All small sample size caveats apply, but since his return to the Mets on July 18 Conforto has hit only .216/.326/.324 with zero homers. These are not good signs, and are especially depressing considering Conforto absolutely dominated April–he slashed .365/.442/.676 during the first month of the season.

However, standing back a little bit–and looking at the whole picture–gives us a fairly positive outlook on both Conforto’s time in the majors and his future as a major league ballplayer. Over a career 480 plate appearances–still less than a full season–he has hit .241/.315/.452, good for a .290 TAv. This, combined with his surprisingly solid defense, is a fairly positive result from any 23-year-old. If we could go back to the day before Conforto was called up in 2015, his performance to date would probably be a pretty reasonable expectation. Considering his production to date, age, and the love he gets from scouts, it is no wonder that Conforto is still considered an extremely important piece of the Mets’ future.

Nimmo

Brandon Nimmo has been around for, seemingly, forever.  Drafted in 2011 as a raw high school pick out of Wyoming, Nimmo failed to live up to any kind of hype in his first couple of years in professional ball.  He did “break out” some during 2014 at Single-A, hitting .322/.448/.458, and has had an excellent overall season in Triple-A this year.

His Triple-A slash line of .336/.409/.517 really does look quite impressive on first glance. However, not only has he produced this line in the incredibly hitter-friendly PCL but he’s also done it on the back of a .392 BABIP as opposed to any kind of notable growth in power. Keeping this in mind, his season to date appears less promising than it may look on first glance from a statistical perspective.

Furthermore (while a very small sample size) Nimmo has struggled mightily during his time in the majors thus far.  In his 20 games in the major leagues he has struck out almost 27 percent of the time, while batting less than .240 with virtually no power. Taking the entire package together, things don’t look too promising for Nimmo. Advanced projection models, like ZiPS and Steamer, see him as a below-average offensive contributor at the moment.  He’s still young (younger than Conforto by about a month), but an offensive game without much power leaves Nimmo in a tough spot.

It seems clear that Conforto is the superior player now and into the future. Considering the Mets don’t have much cost controlled possible offensive stars in the pipeline (save, maybe, Amed Rosario) Conforto seems like the type of piece they should try to hang on to. Nimmo, on the other hand, may be the type of limited-ceiling player that could work well as a cog of a more favorable trade. If Nimmo stays, the Mets probably shouldn’t be counting on him as anything more than a part-time player–not without his value, but certainly a far less valuable piece than his elder counterpart.

Photo Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

Flores was promoted to the Major Leagues in 2013 amid reports of underappreciated offensive potential. There were major questions concerning his glove but, for the most part, no one questioned the bat–in Metland there was a general feeling that if Wilmer could stick at a position he would undoubtedly mash. A couple of years ago some fans even suggested a David Wright departure via free agency would be fine as it would open up third base for Flores. Today, with Wright incapacitated and the offense a question mark, no seems to be happy with Wilmer Flores as the starting third baseman. How did we get to this point?

The short answer is this: Flores just hasn’t hit enough. Since arriving in the majors Flores has slashed .253/.290/.387 and never produced a season in which he was solidly above-average in terms of offense. After his disastrous major league showing in 2013, his TAv values of .249 (in 2014) and .262 (in 2015) were underwhelming when compared to the promise he once showed. His 2016 season seems to be more of the same as he is currently sitting on a .250/.308/.391 slash line. Wilmer Flores has, thus far, been a decent role player, but not the offensive force some predicted he may become. However, even though his offensive ceiling may be lower than we once imagined, I think there are a few reasons to believe we have not seen the best of Wilmer Flores just yet.

The first thing to remember is that Wilmer Flores is still only 24 years old, younger than Diamondbacks star third baseman Jake Lamb. That’s encouraging. Flores came up really young and, most critically, never received  consistent playing time since that point. There’s a chance that Flores still has some developmental strides he could make. Having said that, we can’t just cross our fingers and hope based on age. We’ll need some actual signs that improvement is coming. Luckily, there are a few legitimate changes that Flores has made this season that could bode well for his future.

Prior to this season Flores’ Z-Swing rate hovered around 66 percent. This year it is sitting at about 72 percent.  His O-Swing rate now sits under 28 percent, more than two percentage points below his previous career low set in 2015. The important thing: he is swinging at fewer balls, and far more strikes. Unless you’re Vladimir Guerrero, that’s basically the best thing a hitter can do. While Flores hasn’t yet seen this selectivity translate to  greatly improved quality of contact yet–he’s only running a .141 ISO–it makes sense that these small improvements could raise his overall production. Making better decisions as to when to swing is half the battle.

Flores’ batting approach has also paid off in another important way; his walk rate. Wilmer, now with 13 walks in only 53 games, is only six walks away from matching his total from last season. In fact, Flores’ current 7.6 percent walk rate is higher than his rate during any stint he has had at any level of professional ball. Obviously walking isn’t Wilmer’s strong suit, but it is starting to look like his strides in plate discipline are making a real difference. If he can maintain some of these gains he has made, then that puts less pressure on his batted ball success to carry his offensive production.

It is these small improvements in plate discipline, combined with his age and increasing role, that lead me to believe Flores might still be improving, rather than a finished product. That being said, he’ll still require more time to bear these out, and it would help to see a couple of data points that show improved overall production. It may be anecdotal, but Flores has hit two multi-homer games in his last four, including his performance last night against Miami. Before the last four games, he had only had two multi-homer games in his career.

Despite the flashes of brilliance and the incremental improvements, the team has consistently looked to upgrade over Flores thus far. The Mets have discussed brining in external options to man third base, there has been talk about moving Neil Walker to third, and of course Jose Reyes is coming for his job.  However, the Mets might have their answer to the third base conundrum already in place–and he’s only been here for nine years. It looks like Flores, finally, might be breaking out at just the right time.

Photo Credit: Andy Marlin-USA TODAY Sports