Travis d'Arnaud

Travis Emmanuel d'Arnaud (born February 10, 1989), nicknamed "Lil D", is an American professional baseball catcher for the Atlanta Braves of Major League Baseball (MLB).

d'Arnaud was born on February 10, 1989, in Long Beach, California.

He was born into a musical family: his mother Marita ran an after-school performing-arts center in Long Beach, while his father played trumpet, piano, and trombone.

In his extended family, two of d'Arnaud's uncles were pianists, while his cousin was an electropop musician.

In addition to music, d'Arnaud described his Long Beach upbringing as having a "huge baseball community".

He was a childhood fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers of Major League Baseball (MLB), and modeled his baseball career after Hall of Fame catcher Mike Piazza.

As children, d'Arnaud and his older brother Chase would discuss "how cool that would be if we played with each other or against each other in the big leagues".

Rather than follow Chase into playing for Los Alamitos High School, d'Arnaud chose to attend Lakewood High School, the rivals of Los Alamitos.

He was selected by the Philadelphia Phillies in the supplemental first round of the 2007 Major League Baseball draft.

He previously played in MLB for the New York Mets, Los Angeles Dodgers, and Tampa Bay Rays.

d'Arnaud began to draw the attention of scouts as a high school baseball player in 2007, and was invited to work out with the Toronto Blue Jays.

d'Arnaud graduated in 2007, and was inducted into the Lakewood Youth Hall of Fame as a Co-Athlete of the Year in 2008.

d'Arnaud had committed to play college baseball for the Pepperdine Waves of Pepperdine University after high school, the same school for which his brother played, but was selected by the Philadelphia Phillies in the supplemental first round of the 2007 Major League Baseball draft, the 37th overall pick.

He chose to void his college commitment and signed a minor league contract for $832,500.

In 2007, d'Arnaud started his professional career with the Philadelphia Phillies' Rookie League affiliate, the Gulf Coast League Phillies.

He played 41 games in the GCL and put together a .241 batting average and a .626 OPS.

In 2008, d'Arnaud began the season with the Phillies' Class-A Short Season affiliate, the Williamsport Crosscutters of the New York–Penn League.

He played 48 games in the NYPL, hitting .309 with an OPS of .833, and was selected for the mid-season All-Star game.

From there he was promoted to the Class-A Lakewood BlueClaws.

Between the two teams, he batted .305/.367/.464, while on defense in 58 games he committed 10 errors and was charged with 16 passed balls.

In 2009, d'Arnaud played with the BlueClaws where he remained all year, playing in 126 games.

He hit .255 with an OPS of .738, though he hit 13 home runs.

He was once again selected for the All-Star game, this time in the South Atlantic League.

The BlueClaws went on to win the 2009 South Atlantic League championship.

Despite suffering from back problems and playing in a higher league, d'Arnaud put up comparable numbers to his 2009 campaign, hitting .259, an OPS of .726 and six home runs in 71 games.

For the week of April 19, d'Arnaud was named FSL Player of the Week and was selected to participate in the midsummer Home Run Derby.

He was named a Mid-Season and Post-Season All-Star.

To begin 2010, d'Arnaud was sent from the Phillies to the Toronto Blue Jays organization in a ten player trade.

The Phillies received Roy Halladay, along with $6 million from the Blue Jays.

Toronto received d'Arnaud, Kyle Drabek, and Michael Taylor, who they later flipped to the Oakland Athletics for Brett Wallace.

Wallace was then traded to the Houston Astros for center-field prospect Anthony Gose.

d'Arnaud played the entire 2010 season with the Dunedin Blue Jays, the Blue Jays' High-A affiliate in the Florida State League.

In 2011, d'Arnaud played the entire 2011 season in the Eastern League, with the Blue Jays Double-A affiliate, the New Hampshire Fisher Cats.

Over his first three seasons in the minors, d'Arnaud had steadily improved his defense, but 2011 was the year in which he made vast improvements to all aspects of his offensive ability.

He finished the season with a .311 batting average and an OBP of .371 in 114 games.

He saw another great spike in power, hitting 21 home runs with a slugging percentage of .542 and 33 doubles.

On July 13, d'Arnaud was named to the Eastern League's Mid-Season All-Star team.

He also made the post-season team on August 25, going to his sixth All-Star game in total.

The following day, on August 26, d'Arnaud was named the EL's Most Valuable Player.

He made his MLB debut in 2013.