We just delved into the struggles Mariners outfielder Mallex Smith endured during his first season in Seattle after a trade with Tampa Bay. He and catcher Mike Zunino were the headliners in the five-player deal when it went down in November 2018, but the latter may have been even worse last season.
Zunino, who turned 29 in March, joined the pros as the third overall pick of the Mariners in 2012. Has he lived up to that selection? It depends on the year. Zunino has totaled anywhere from 2.1 to 4.6 fWAR on three occasions since he debuted the year after the Mariners drafted him, but the lows have been rather low. He didn’t produce much in 2015 or last season. In fact, Zunino was among the least valuable hitters in the sport a year ago.
In his first season in Tampa Bay, Zunino limped to a .165/.232/.312 line in 90 games and 289 plate appearances. Out of 320 players who amassed at least 250 trips to the plate, Zunino ranked dead last in wRC+ (45) and eighth from the bottom in strikeout percentage (33.9). Strikeouts are simply part of the package when it comes to Zunino, who has fanned 34.2 percent of the time in his career, but that doesn’t mean he has always been unplayable as a hitter. Sure, with a lifetime slash of .202/.271/.395, Zunino’s not exactly Johnny Bench, but he has already piled up 104 home runs and recorded an 83 wRC+ (the latter figure’s not good, but when combined with his strong defense, it has been enough to make him a regular).
So what happened to Zunino in 2019? For one, he stopped hitting the ball hard. Just three years ago – the best season of his career – Zunino ranked in the top 10 percent of the majors in hard-hit rate, barrel percentage, average exit velocity and expected weighted on-base average on contact, according to Statcast. Zunino posted a useful .355 wOBA/.332 xwOBA that year, but he could only muster .235/.271 in those categories last season. As shown in Statcast’s data, compared to his career year, he’s chasing too many pitches outside of the strike zone and going to the opposite field quite a bit more. Considering Zunino’s only real use at the plate is to hit for power, it’s no surprise those developments have minimized his impact. He totaled just nine home runs last season and logged one of the worst ISOs of his career (.147).
If there’s any good news, it’s that Zunino remains a defensive asset. He threw out 39 percent of would-be base stealers last season (the league-average mark was 27 percent) and ranked 10th out of all backstops in Baseball Prospectus’ Fielding Runs Above Average metric. That was enough for the Rays to stick with Zunino, whom they’ll pay $4.5MM this year. But if Zunino doesn’t take steps forward on offense in 2o2o, it could have a negative effect on the Rays’ playoff chances. While the team did win 96 games and earn a playoff berth last season, it did so with help from a solid offensive showing from fellow catcher Travis d’Arnaud, who picked up more playing time than Zunino but left for Atlanta in free agency.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Zunino is at least a 100x better than Johnny Bench
Sure, Bench is 72 years old.
haha nailed it
Zunino will rebound. He will have multiple 30+ HR seasons.
Tony Graffanino would hit multiple 30 HR seasons nowadays. That’s not saying much.
2o2o?
He’s had one good season in 7 seasons his career OBP is .271
He needs a full-time personal hitting coach, flexibility coach, sport psychologist, and Lasik surgery. Not a joke and not putting him down. Pitchers figured him out to this point and he needs to adjust back. I’m a fan of slapping line drives all over and having them (pitchers, fielders) adjust to that. He has some pop but should take a better approach. I honestly saw him come out, fly through the minors and stay somewhat hot for a couple weeks. He swings at high fastballs and either misses or hits a homer from what I saw. He’s a solid regular with the hidden potential to carry a game or a series.
Glad you’re a fan of “slapping the ball around” (so am I), but the arbitration guy isn’t. Until that changes (and it won’t; HRs are just easier to count), they’ll be a lot of Zunino-s.
Bottom line; not a bad player by any means, but waaaaaaaaaay too expensive, for anybody, especially the Rays. Not a smart move. Perez offers solid defensive value, and there’s others all around the minors.
Until the main goals of baseball shift from winning games and getting paid to everyone having high batting averages, “slapping the ball around” isn’t going to happen.
Wow. I thought Austin Hedges was far and away the worst in mlb.
Zunino was rushed to the majors by Seattle and that effectively killed his career before it even got started. He should have stayed in the minors for at least 2 more years before he was brought up (Edgar Martinez admitted as much to my dad and I during a meet-and-greet session about 4 years ago), but at that time the M’s were in the habit of bringing up their top hitting prospects well before they were ready (ex., Ackley, Miller, Franklin, Smoak, Montero, etc.) As such, he had to learn on the job, and the M’s weren’t exactly lining up great hitting coaches at that time (except for Edgar; during his tenure, Zunino had his best season.) Unfortunately, he’s turned into Rob Deer at the plate. At least he’s good behind it, but the Rays can ill afford to carry too many dead bats in the lineup, especially with Pham and Garcia gone. They have Meadows and possibly Lowe as “set” bats, but most of the rest are big maybes. Tsutsugo has never hit in the majors before; Kiermaier has an abysmal OBP (when he’s in the lineup, anyway); Choi may be better suited for a platoon; same for Jose Martinez; is Yandy Diaz for real?
They’ve got terrific starting pitching for a change; they have 5 legit starters plus McKay and possibly Honeywell down the road. So Zunino is important to help those guys reach their potential. But this year is make or break for him; the Rays certainly won’t keep him around at a decent salary if he can’t get back to 15-20 HR’s, and most other teams will only look at him as a backup if he doesn’t rebound. This one looks like another Jack Zduriencik “special”…
Edgar Martinez “admitted” what? Zunino got called up too early? That’s completely arbitrary and up to personal opinion and real
Easy to claim in retrospect.
Doesn’t anyone ever put any of the responsibility on the player anymore? It’s always scouts, organizations, coaches, barbers. The guy just couldn’t play. It’s on him.
Excellent points. And I’d add that without the “super ball”, B-Lowe’s K rate is going to really look ugly. (OTOH, with the shortened season, if there is one, the Lords may be inspired to keep the juiced ball).
But as you said, 5 excellent starters, 2 more in the wings, and others developing. Potentially very strong bullpen, and though they’re not particularly strong defensively, they’re the best in their division, which is (Boston’s OF notwithstanding) defensively bereft.
Jerry Dipoto has said on the radio that Zunino was rushed to the big leagues.
Many teams, yes, many teams, have won championships with offensively challenged catchers. The job is so important that if you are a good catcher you don’t need to hit much. That said, everyone pines for the offensive numbers in their fancy leagues but the reality is that you can scroll through the championship teams and find plenty of catchers who didn’t hit much at all. Many teams realize this and yet their fans constantly dream of upgrading offensively at the position. Hopefully, Zunino can hit respectfully enough to keep his job.
Many teams, yes many teams, have won championships with defensively sound catchers that hit above the Mendoza line.
Sox won 108 games in 2018 with their catchers apparently facing Bob Gibson every game. He would seemingly come out of the dugout just to face the Red Sox catchers. Just like in the 1967 World Series when the Red Sox catchers were so bad that Elston Howard hitting .147 was put behind the plate. Ah, the value of experience.
I’m not discounting the fact that defensive experts behind the plate deserve a place on the roster. I’m arguing your statement that catchers don’t need to put up a better stat line than what Zunino did last year. The Red Sox were able to hide their bad catchers in 2018 due to the other exceptional hitters on their roster. The Rays do not have that kind of offense.
bust. Michael Perez is their hope this year.
How the hell did Zunino have a .251 batting average in 2017?
He came back from Tacoma where he destroyed the ball and just kept it going.
I always liked Zuni. One of my favs when he was with SEA and i always hoped hed do better. The previous management before dipoto absolutely destroyed him by rushing him to the majors. Such a shame.
Still more valuable that Chris Davis
He also played in just 90 games. Had injuries last year. Not making excuses but none of that was mentioned in his profile from last year.