D’Arnaud must prove he’s the man for Mets
PORT ST. LUCIE _ There’s no other way to say it: Travis d’Arnaud is on the clock. The Mets are gambling that he’ll bounce back after a disastrous 2016 season, but they won’t wait all year. There is too much riding on this win-now season that depends largely on the starting rotation, and by extension the catching. The dramatic change d’Arnaud has made in his swing is a start, to be sure. He is no longer wrapping the bat around his head, as he did last year, and has a short, compact swing that he says he feels comfortable with right now. But can he avoid reverting back to old habits in the heat of competition? And can he improve defensively, both as a thrower and a pitch-caller? Talking to Mets’ people here in spring training so far, I get the feeling d’Arnaud is on a relatively short leash — if his play is an issue by mid-season they’ll go looking hard to trade for an upgrade at catcher, as they did last year when they wouldn’t give up shortstop prospect Amed Rosario for Jonathan Lucroy The Mets love d’Arnaud for his work ethic and his team-first attitude, but they haven’t been thrilled with his pitch-calling at times over the last couple of seasons. And last year his confidence crumbled as his game fell apart offensively and defensively. Terry Collins professes belief in d’Arnaud, but he was also pretty blunt on Friday in assessing the state of his catcher’s game coming off last season, at least hinting that pitchers lost confidence in throwing to him. “I talked to him the other day about his importance on this team,” Collins said Friday. “I told him, ‘look, make no mistake you had a bad year.’ It happens. Everybody in baseball has a bad year. But right now we are right on the cusp of being really, really good and he’s playing a premier position for us, especially with our pitching staff. “The defensive side, that’s where we’ve got to really focus. As I said to him, you’ve got those five guys, they’ve got to want to pitch to you. I want them to walk into my office and say, ‘I want Travis to catch me today.’
“And I think if the guys are comfortable (pitching to him), and he gets his confidence back, he’s going to hit.”
In so many words, then, it sounded as if pitchers preferred to pitch to Rivera, who has a reputation as a strong defensive catcher.
Rivera, in fact, threw out 30 percent of basestealers last season, above the league average of 27 percent, while d’Arnaud threw out only 22 percent (17 out of 78).
That explained at least partly why Rivera became something of a personal catcher to Noah Syndergaard, helping him with his problems controlling the running game. But the pitch calling may have been an issue as well at times. SNY analyst Nelson Figueroa publicly criticized d’Arnaud at times for failing to get his pitchers to throw inside enough to keep hitters from cheating to get to fastballs on the outer half, and I heard similar criticism from scouts.
That’s why the Mets went looking for a catching instructor in the offseason, and wound up hiring Glenn Sherlock from the Diamondbacks’ staff.
He met with d’Arnaud in the offseason, as did Long, and the individual work has continued with both coaches in spring training. Essentially the Mets are trying to break their catcher of bad habits and get him back to where he was in 2015, when he showed a lot of pop with the bat and threw out 33 percent of basestealers — until the postseason anyway, when he went 0-for-11.
The work with Long, which also includes shortening his stride, is obvious in watching him take batting practice.
“What we’re trying to do with Travis is just get him to repeat the same swing every day,” said Long. “Travis can change like the wind at times. During an at-bat he can have his bat angle in three different places.
“I was talking to Yoenis Cespedes, who’s a great student of hitting and a great guy to help me. He said Travis just does too many things. He doesn’t repeat his swing over and over and over.”
Can the Mets do a makeover on d’Arnaud this spring? At age 28 he’s no kid anymore, though because of injuries he has only played 281 games in the big leagues. o all eyes are on him this spring, but just who is he as a player? If he can be the guy whose athleticism and power had at least some scouts a few years ago predicting an All-Star career, the Mets will be glad they stuck with him.
If not, well, he won’t get all year to figure it out. If d’Arnaud is underachieving again come July, he’ll be gone, one way or another. Start the clock.
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