Earlier on Monday afternoon, the Atlanta Braves completed a no-brainer of a move when they exercised the club option for Marcell Ozuna and locked him in for another season. It sure seemed like Travis d’Arnaud would also be locking in as well, especially considering that it had been reported and assumed that d’Arnaud would be having his option picked up as well.
Well, as it turns out this was another one of those abrupt about-faces that we’ve grown used to seeing from the Braves this season. Travis d’Arnaud is now a free agent after the Braves declined the club option. Luke Jackson is also a free agent now.
The Braves have exercised Marcell Ozuna’s option for 2025 and declined options on Luke Jackson and Travis d’Arnaud, per source.
— Mark Feinsand (@Feinsand) November 4, 2024
As far as Luke Jackson’s option goes, that’s not particularly a surprise. Jackson had a tough season on the mound in 2024 (125 ERA-, 108 FIP- between San Francisco and Atlanta) and the change in scenery didn’t produce a ton of magic in that regard. It’s definitely surprising to see the Braves letting Travis d’Arnaud go since he was essentially Atlanta’s No. 1 catcher in 2024 due to Sean Murphy dealing with injuries and underperformance. While this wasn’t d’Arnaud’s best season in a Braves uniform, he was still one of the more productive hitters for the team this season while playing perfectly fine defense as the backstop.
It’s definitely a bit of a weird decision and the only thing that I can think of at this particular moment is that the Braves as an organization figure that d’Arnaud will be entering his Age-36 season in 2025 and probably believe that we’ll see something similar to what he did in 2023 (84 wRC+) and 2021 (79 wRC+) rather than betting on him repeating his 2024 performance. Also, top prospect Drake Baldwin is waiting in the wings and essentially has nothing left to prove in Triple-A after the season he just had. As of right now, Baldwin would likely be the second catcher for the Braves assuming all goes well in spring training.
Either way, it’s still a bit of a surprising move considering how certain the language had been surrounding Travis d’Arnaud and the status of his club option. He’ll now be testing the free agency waters and this could very well mean that d’Arnaud will be wearing a different uniform for the first time since 2019 if he doesn’t eventually end up returning via free agency.