NORTH PORT, Fla. — With Freddie Freeman gone, new leaders must step up for the Braves.
One of them could be catcher Travis d’Arnaud, who is respected in the clubhouse. The 33-year-old is entering his third season with the Braves.
As part of its season preview coverage, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution conducted Q&As with key Braves players.
Below is the Q&A with d’Arnaud:
AJC: What’s your personal goal for this season?
D’Arnaud: My personal goal is to win the (NL) East.
AJC: You guys talk about the culture a lot. Why do you think it’s so strong?
D’Arnaud: (General manager) Alex (Anthopoulos) brings in great clubhouse guys. That goes a long way. He used this line last year, but when you’re in the lows of a season, I think a bad clubhouse would fold, where if you had a good clubhouse, you pick each other up and stay together.
AJC: What’s this team’s biggest strength?
D’Arnaud: Clubhouse. Yeah. It’s rare to have guys messing around and talking about every little thing all the time.
AJC: You know the guys in this clubhouse well. Who could have a breakout season?
D’Arnaud: Kyle Wright. That’s what I’ll say. To do what he did last year through basically the whole season in (the) minor leagues and then his first time in a while is in the World Series, and for him to succeed, I think is huge.
AJC: You’ve played for a few different managers. What makes Brian Snitker so good?
D’Arnaud: I’ve played for a few different managers? I’ve played for like 25 if you include Little League. Snit’s a players’ manager. Always keeps guys in great moods, always has a player’s back. Very open communicator as well. And he’s the same. He’s the same every day. I think that goes a long way, especially over 180 days worth of living together for 10, 12 hours a day.
AJC: What do you expect the emotions to be when you guys experience the World Series ceremony during the opening series?
D’Arnaud: It’s going to be like any opening day. Obviously, it’s going to be different in the aspect of we’ll have gold jerseys on and we’ll be the reigning champs, but I think the most important thing is we have to look at it like any series. Whether it’s opening day or it’s the middle of July or it’s the World Series, the goal is to win the series and that’s where our focus should be.
AJC: The Braves will repeat as World Series champions if ...
D’Arnaud: (We) just try to win every series and keep having fun.
