The Mets catcher, and at least once their 2nd and 3rd basemen, is heading into another critical year. Can he hit close to projections? Can he stay healthy? Do the Mets need to jump ship on d’Arnaud and Plawecki and try something else? First a look into what the projections thought he would do last year:
| Travis d’Arnaud | |||||||||
| PA | AB | R | HR | RBI | SB | AVG | OBP | SLG | |
| 2016 | 276 | 251 | 27.00 | 4 | 15 | 0 | 0.247 | 0.307 | 0.323 |
| Projections | |||||||||
| MLB.com | 335 | 38.00 | 10 | 45 | 0 | 0.257 | 0.314 | 0.394 | |
| Steamer | 276 | 31.00 | 10 | 35 | 1 | 0.254 | 0.322 | 0.42 | |
| ZiPS | 363 | 43.00 | 10 | 36 | 1 | 0.248 | 0.309 | 0.393 | |
| ESPN | 31.00 | 7 | 26 | 0 | 0.251 | ||||
| Baseball Prospectus | 416 | 47.00 | 13 | 49 | 0 | 0.249 | 0.321 | 0.414 | |
| Sporting News | 312 | 37.00 | 12 | 42 | 1 | 0.256 | 0.32 | 0.415 | |
| NBC Rotoworld | 308 | 40.00 | 11 | 41 | 1 | 0.224 | 0.302 | 0.372 | |
| Rotowire | 323 | 38.00 | 10 | 34 | 0 | 0.251 | 0.314 | 0.393 | |
| Baseball America | 405 | 42.00 | 11 | 40 | 1 | 0.24 | 0.297 | 0.371 | |
| FBG 2017 | 348 | 42.00 | 13 | 39 | 0 | 0.252 | |||
| Average | 389.5 | 329.57143 | 38.9 | 10.7 | 38.7 | 0.5 | 0.2482 | 0.312375 | 0.3965 |
2017 Stats:
112 G, 376 PA, 348 AB, 39 R, 85 H, 16 HR, .244 BA, .293 OBP, .443 SLG
d’Arnaud exceeded play time projections last year (not sure if that ever happened). In general his non-power numbers came in below expectations (average, OBP) and his power numbers came in quite a bit above projections (almost 5 more homers than projected, 40 points higher in slugging).
As such the best programs at predicted his performance this year was Steamer and totally not surprisingly, Baseball Prospectus. FBG was close too but they over project everyone, so they get lucky with players like d’Arnaud.
If he stays healthy this year, maybe he cracks 20 homers? How much time does he split with Plawecki? Will there be a new player like Rene Rivera between them as well?
