Braves place Travis d’Arnaud, Alex Jackson on IL, recall William Contreras and Jeff Mathis

The Braves announced Sunday morning that both of the team’s catchers, Travis d’Arnaud and Alex Jackson would be hitting the IL, with prospect William Contreras and journeyman Jeff Mathis called up to replace them.

An IL stint for d’Arnaud was expected, although being put on the 60-day is a pretty bad outcome overall. Hopefully that’s all Travis will need to heal and he won’t need a long-term surgery. Alex Jackson would have been expected to be even more important to the team than he already was, with d’Arnaud out, but he will be hitting the 10-day IL with a hamstring strain. Hamstring injuries can be unpredictable, so let’s hope Jackson’s is minor and heals quickly.

Mathis is pretty bad offensively, but teams like his defense. We will have a full write-up on the more notable of the two call-ups, William Contreras, but I will say that he has actual offensive upside. Contreras has a huge opportunity here to show he can be the primary catcher for the foreseeable future if he plays well, although the opportunity came in an extremely unfortunate manner.