The team’s third catcher in 2024 could see a bigger role in 2025.
Chadwick Tromp produced an outstanding offensive season at Triple-A and was an effective fill-in with the Atlanta Braves in April and May. Now, the organization’s third catcher may be in line for an increased role with the big-league club after the team made a somewhat surprising change to its catching depth chart earlier this offseason.
How acquired
Tromp, an international free agent signed by the Cincinnati Reds in 2013, was added by the Braves in mid-September 2021 after he was designated for assignment by the San Francisco Giants. Since joining Atlanta, Tromp has primarily seen action at Triple-A, serving as reserve depth for the organization for each of the past three seasons. In some ways, the Braves’ consistency in retaining Tromp immediately after the 2021 season in which they went through a catcher injury nightmare makes a lot of sense.
What were the expectations?
With Sean Murphy signed to a long-term contract and Travis d’Arnaud a well-respective and productive reserve, Tromp was expected to provide depth as the team’s third catcher while playing at Triple-A. Tromp’s name would be called up to Atlanta only if one of the team’s two primary catcher fell to injuries, a thing which happens with some regularity.
Coming into the season, Tromp had logged 102 major league PAs across parts of four seasons, with a 65 wRC+ but 0.2 fWAR. His defense as a catcher had been fine, with some framing upside. Third catchers are sometimes better than replacement level because playing catcher is incredibly valuable, but Tromp’s minor league offensive performance was inconsistent, so figuring he’d be a “hold down the fort guy” only made sense — especially since, if he were better, he could probably find a real backup role somewhere.
2024 results
On Opening Day, Sean Murphy left the game due to injury; Tromp was summoned immediately thereafter to join the big league club. With Murphy out of action for two months, Tromp saw the most action since joining the Braves organization, appearing in 19 games and picking up 54 PAs as a reserve to Travis d’Arnaud.
Those 19 games and 54 PAs represented the most MLB action Tromp had seen in a single year since his debut season in 2020 with the Giants. Once Murphy returned from injury in early June, Tromp returned to Gwinnett for the rest of the season, outside of a brief three-day call-up in September during which he did not appear in a game.
He did pretty much what he had been doing all along, which is pretty impressive given that results in such a small sample in no way need to line up to a guy’s talent level. He posted a 68 wRC+, slightly outhitting his xwOBA, and played really good tiny-sample defense, such that he was drawing postgame praise from Chris Sale after the latter’s successful starts. Consequently, Tromp essentially doubled his career fWAR total in 2024.
What went right?
Playing at a 3+ fWAR-per-600 PAs pace in a small sample is one thing, but Tromp also had a really good offensive season for Gwinnett, putting up a .303/.378/.457 line, good for a 120 wRC+. Does that suggest he has more upside with the bat than previously thought? Given that he’ll be 30 in a few months, probably not. But it was a nice achievement for him nonetheless, and should at least make the Braves more comfortable that he can be relied upon for another few weeks if needed.
It’s somewhat amusing, and perhaps fitting for a backup catcher, that Tromp’s highest-WPA game of the year came in a 16-4 shellacking at the hands of the Mets… all because he had a two-run double with the Braves already down 7-0. (Weirdly, Tromp had seven singles, six doubles, and just one walk this year.)
While he had some other big-ish hits, he also tended to come up short in big situations, which is why that random double above resulted in him accumulating more game WPA than, say, this game in which he got a comeback victory started with a hit:
What went wrong?
Thinking about expectations, organization role, and track record, not all that much went wrong for Tromp. His hitting was bad in terms of both contact quality and plate discipline, but that’s not surprising. He did post essentially the slowest sprint speed in MLB, so that’s something.
Probably the worst moment of the season involving Tromp was similar to the one we highlighted for Luke Williams earlier, essentially, not much of a fault of his own. With the Braves trailing the Guardians 2-0 in the bottom of the eighth, Travis d’Arnaud connected for a ground-rule double that made it a 2-1 game, and was pinch-run for by Luke Williams. The next batter singled, tying the game, but Williams was thrown out at home. That meant that in the bottom of the tenth, after the Guardians had failed to score in the top half, Tromp came up with the bases loaded… took a first-pitch ball… and then struck out by missing the next three pitches, each of which was a breaking pitch out of the zone. The Braves failed to score and then lost in the 11th after the Guardians scored two. Not Tromp’s fault, but not great, and the gamble of pinch-running for d’Arnaud ended up costing the Braves an out.
2025 outlook
What a difference six weeks may make for the outlook of what has, to this point, mainly been a minor league career for Tromp. At season’s end, Tromp’s best case with Atlanta appeared to be a reprise of the same role he played the last few seasons — the team’s third catcher, available for fill-in duty should one of the starters go down. However, with the organization’s top prospect, catcher Drake Baldwin, pushing closer to his big-league debut, it was fair wonder if Tromp might be search of a new organization to call home prior to the 2025 season.
Although by no means a sure thing, it seems more likely that Tromp could be penciled in for the back-up catcher spot in Atlanta after the organization opted to decline d’Arnaud’s option and saw the veteran backstop sign with Anaheim. Baldwin is still knocking on the door, but given his youth, Baldwin is likely to start the year at Triple-A in order to receive regular playing time. With Murphy likely to be the full-time starter — and not in more of a time-share — Tromp may settle into a traditional back-up catcher role playing once every five or six games.
The Braves could decide to bring in a more experienced back-up for Murphy, but it seems likely — at least in November 2024 — that Tromp could be a full-time big league next season. If so, the Braves should be heartened that due to his defense, Tromp’s current projections have him accumulating WAR at either “fantastic backup” levels (ZiPS) or an above-average rate in general (Steamer), which is honestly pretty great considering the guy has all of about 100 major league PAs and has spent most of the last half-decade in the minors.