Welcome to the next installment of MMN’s Mid-Season Top 25 Prospects! We’re in the final stretch now…
3. Travis d’Arnaud, C
Height: 6’2″
Weight: 195
Age: 24
Bats/Throws: Right/Right
Contact: 45/55 Power: 45/60 Speed: 30/20 Field: 50/50 Arm: 50/55
If only this were a video game and we could heal d’Arnaud’s collective history by paying $5 to the Playstation Network, my outlook for d’Arnaud would be a lot less paranoid. You know the story by now with d’Arnaud — if he wasn’t hurt, he’d probably be the best catching prospect in the game right now. He’s the complete package, both offensively and defensively, and could still pan out to be a real star. We’re in such a weird place with d’Arnaud because it’s impossible to ignore his injury history, yet it’s also impossible to ignore the wealth of tools he possesses.
This is normally the point where I’d highlight their statistical performances, but d’Arnaud has just 49 plate appearances in 2013, with a .250/.429/.472 slash. More appropriate numbers to work with are his 16 home runs and 21 doubles in just 303 plate appearances last season, and his .333/.380/.595 slash line. Now, the numbers are inflated because of the PCL anyway, but there’s no denying that d’Arnaud has been blessed with tremendous baseball talent.
A projected line for him could be a .275 batting average with 20+ home runs at the MLB level with above-average defense, which is really all you can ask from a catcher. Am I worried about his injuries affecting his play down the line? You betcha. But he’s one of ours, so I’ll sit here hoping that he pans out to be the star that he was always expected to be.
If we’re lucky, we’ll see a glimpse of the future in September when he’s called up — he played his first GCL rehab game today.
MMN Mid-Season Top 25 Prospects Series
The traditional scouting scale, which ranks players on a scale of 20-80 (abbreviated at times without the zero), can summarize how we feel about a player in an easy to understand format. Now, for those of you unfamiliar with the scale, you’ll see two numbers — something like 30/60, which isn’t a fraction, but rather a representation of their present status and their potential. The number on the left represents their current standing, while the number on the right shows what they could become. For a further explanation on what the numbers mean, I strongly encourage you to check out these links (Scouting for Batters and Scouting for Pitchers) which I will leave on each post going ahead in this series. With that being said, I really hope you enjoy our work going ahead, and any and all questions and comments are appreciated.
Previous Posts
Nos. 11 – 15: Kevin Plawecki to Domingo Tapia
Nos. 16 – 20: Steven Matz to Hansel Robles
Nos. 21 – 25: Aderlin Rodriguez to Ivan Wilson