With all the hysteria following Yoenis Cespedes, and the recent tarring and feathering of Matt Harvey, it’s easy to forget there are other players on the Mets who are making major contributions. Chief among those players is Travis d’Arnaud. 

When the Mets obtained him, he had a reputation of being a good hitting catcher. While his career had a rough start, he fixed his swing in AAA, and he’s been raking ever since. This year he’s hitting .287/.364/.540. These are tremendous numbers for any position, let alone for a catcher. 

Speaking of catching, d’Arnaud continues to help his pitching staff. He remains one of the best in the game at pitch framing. For all the talk about innings limits and pitch counts, this ability cannot be ignored. It’s a tremendous skill not only to get a strike called a strike, but also to get a ball called a strike. It was one of the hallmarks of those 90’s Braves teams. 

The knock on him has always been that he’s injury prone, and he’s done nothing to dispel that this year with two long DL stints. However, the main fear with him was concussions, and he hasn’t had one this year. Furthermore, it looks like his weakness can turn out to be his strength this year. He’s only played 48 out of a possible 139 games. This means he’ll be fresh for October. 

When he’s played d’Arnaud has been tremendous. If not for Cespedes, we might be calling him d’Man. There’s nothing else you could ask him to do right now that he’s not doing, except maybe choosing the right wine to go with the post-game meal. If you think about it, with his play at both sides of the plate, he deserves that moniker. 

d’Arnaud is d’Man.