January 14, 2021

After his tenure as a Met was cut short, it was good to see d'Arnaud bounce back for the remainder of the 2019 season and land himself a nice contract with the Braves. The Braves definitely weren't expecting the type of hitter they ended up getting from him in 2020, but they aren't complaining. Everything just went right at the plate for d'Arnaud last season. After a career that was pretty much average at the plate, d'Arnaud out of nowhere posted a 145 wRC+, with the Statcast stats to back it up. He was fourth overall in average exit velocity, second in hard-hit rate, and had a top-30 xwOBA. He was fantastic, but here is where we pump the brakes a bit. It was just 184 plate appearances in 44 games and should no way be considered the expectation for him going forward. However, expectations are raised due to a performance like that. d'Arnaud is a hitter that hits a lot of line-drives and his barrel rate has trended up each year since 2016 (excluding an injury-lost 2018). These are things that would suggest he can still be one of the better offensive catchers in the game. He should get everyday playing time in the middle of the order for the Braves, and continue to be well regarded among the league's catchers. He's currently being drafted as the six catcher off the board, and that should be a good spot to place him.--mwallach