2024 Braves Season in Review: Travis dArnaud

Following a 2023 season that fell below the standards that Travis dArnaud had set for himself during his time with the Atlanta Bravesand Caught Stealing Above Averagebut held his own against sliders and crushed a bunch of changeups, curves, cutters, and the went wrong?As you can see above, whenever Travis dArnaud put the ball to the bat, good things happened.  The main issue is that dArnaud did a metric ton of whiffing during 2024.  He finished with a career high whiff rate of 32. 8 percent, which was much higher than anything hed put up in a non-shortened season.  Further, as I mentioned earlier, his pitch framing was nowhere near the level it had been at for the past couple of seasons.  Also, remember when we talked about that great first full month of the season? Well, things certainly fell off of a cliff for TdA at the plate immediately following April, as Travis dArnaud proceeded to hit. 196/. 248/. 326 for. 251 wOBA and 57 wRC+ over his next 101 plate appearances.  He even suffered a tough blow to the head in the middle of that stretch  he wasnt out for long but thats still pretty tough to deal with at any given point in a season, much less when youre scuffling at the plate.  Overall, it was kind of a crazy season for dArnaud  he raked in April with a near-. 400 wOBA and xwOBA, and had an insane July with a. 456 wOBA and. 418 xwOBA, but scuffled in the other four months.  By September, he looked really worn out, with his lowest average exit velocity in a single calendar month since July 2022, and his highest whiff rate in a single month ever; the latter isnt a problem in isolation, but when he was missing and making weak contact, it was a bad state of was maybe the low point of dArnauds season, and you can more or less see what we mean  guys shouldnt be turning elevated in-zone fastballs into weak tappers:2025 outlookDespite publicly stating immediately following their elimination from the Postseason that they were planning on picking up Travis dArnauds player option in order to keep him around for another season, Alex Anthopoulos and the Braves did a shocking about-face and declined dArnauds option and allowing him to be a free agent.  While there were intimations that perhaps the Braves were interested in bringing him back a lower price than $8 million, it ended up being meaningless  dArnaud quickly found a new home, as he reunited with Ron Washington in Anaheim on a two-year, $12 million deal with the Angels.  As of right now, ZiPS is projecting dArnaud to post up a similar season in 2025 to what he did in 2024  a 1. 6 WAR season with a slash line of. 228/. 292/. 409 with a wOBA of. 304 and an OPS+ of 94.  Thats basically a gentle age-related decline from.  Anthony Rizzo Jersey.  pretty much what hes done in the past four seasons with the Braves.  Hell be sharing time with Logan OHoppe and playing a role similar to the one he had as a member of the Braves.  dArnaud ended his time with the Braves on an ultimately successful note, and its safe to assume that hell receive a very warm reception should he come up to the plate when the Angels visit the Braves next July.