There is no sugar coating it.  Travis d’Arnaud has had a bad year.  Blame his shoulder.  Blame the hex the Mets have seemingly been under this year.  Blame whatever you want.  The simple fact remains d’Arnaud has had a horrible year.  You can even say he has regressed offensively.

However, behind the plate, he is the same guy he has always been.  He is still a terrific pitch framer that helps his staff by helping ensure that strikes are called strikes and by occasionally getting a ball called a strike.  He allows very few passed balls.  When there is a play at the plate, d’Arnaud is not only adept at fielding a throw, but he does a great job blocking the plate within the terms of the new rules.  As seen last night, he goes a great job in making sure he gets the tag on the runner before they have a chance to touch the plate.

He is slightly below average in throwing out base stealers when there is a pitcher on the mound that bothers holding on runners.  When the pitcher doesn’t hold runners on, like most catcher’s he virtually has no chance to throw out the base runner.  Generally speaking, he seems to call a good game, and there have never been any public complaints from any of his pitchers about his abilities behind the plate.

The reason is on the average d’Arnaud is a good defensive catcher.  While it was anticipated that d’Arnaud’s value would be in his bat, the truth is, as a major leaguer so far, his real value is as a receiver.

With all that said, it seems d’Arnaud has been the scapegoat for this entire 2016 season.  With the Mets struggling offensively, the team sought to upgrade the position by aggressively pursuing Jonathan Lucroy.  Apparently, James Loney and his 86 OPS+ wasn’t hurting the team.  When someone steals a base, it is on him.  Nevermind the fact that Rene Rivera also has a supbar caught stealing percentage (28.6%) or that Noah Syndergaard and Steven Matz don’t bother holding on base runners.  On a team where no one is hitting well, he is the guy slated to hit eighth.  Seemingly, d’Arnaud has been blamed for everything.  It is a shock no one has pinned Yoenis Cespedes injuring his quad on d’Arnaud.

Even with that in mind Nelon Figueroa took blaming d’Arnaud to a new level.  After the game, Figureoa pinned part of the blame for Jacob deGrom’s poor outing on d’Arnaud.  Figueroa took issue with d’Arnaud not going out to the mound to calm down deGrom (frankly, a lost art in the game that few catchers do), and with his pitch selection saying d’Arnaud failed to call inside pitchers.  Only that’s not what happened.

According to deGrom, it was on him saying, “It’s hard to get results when you throw everything right down the middle.  That’s what it is. I’m missing down the middle and these are big-league hitters and that’s what they do.”  (New York Post).

There is no amount of pitch calling, pitch framing, or pep talks that can cure a starting pitcher who has just been completely missing his spots for two days now.  There are very fair and valid criticisms of d’Arnaud.  As noted, he doesn’t throw base runners out.  Furthermore, he is having a terrible offensive season.  That’s all on him.  However, things are going overboard with people now blaming him for other player’s poor performance.