Travis d’Arnaud has reported agreed to a two year deal with Anaheim
The backup/fringe starter catcher market has been heating up in the early parts of the offseason, it appears. The Cleveland Guardians re-signed Texas Rangers’ folk hero/glove first backup catcher Austin Hedges to a one year, $4 million deal last week. And today, per reports, Travis d’Arnaud and the Anaheim Angels have agreed to terms on a two years, $12 million deal.
d’Arnaud has seemingly been around forever — he was selected in the first round of the 2017 draft by the Philadelphia Phillies just two selections after the Rangers picked Julio Borbon, and has been traded in his career for Roy Halladay and for R.A. Dickey. He will be 36 next year, which but the Angels apparently believe in him enough to guarantee him two years.
And of course, for us Rangers fans, we have the less-than-fond memories of d’Arnaud going deep three times in an 8-3 Braves victory over Texas in April — twice off of Andrew Heaney and once off of Jacob Latz. It was, I believe, the first of the myriad of great games by not great catchers that the Rangers were victims of in 2024.