Frank Cesare is an MLB and NBA Editorialist for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @frank_world.
The 24 year old catcher was drafted third overall in 2012, but Mike Zunino hasn’t been able to replicate his collegiate success at the professional level.
In 106 plate appearances, Zunino has only 18 hits—five of which were homeruns. He’s batting .188 on the year with a .250 BABIP, struggling mightily to put the ball in play. He’s striking out in 37.7% of his at bats, which is an egregious misuse of his talent and opportunity.
To make matters worse, Zunino is walking only 5.7% of the time. The righty, despite his 17.9% HR/FB rate, looks like an utter disaster at the plate. His pitch recognition has been atrocious and he could be lumberjacking his way out of a job if he continues down this path.
Courtesy of Brooks Baseball, the catcher is doing most of his hacking on fastballs, sliders and changeups. He’s seen 165 four-seamers, 82 sliders and 27 changeups. Zunino’s swung at 48.48%, 56.10% and 62.96% of those pitches with whiff percentages of 24.24%, 23.17% and 25.93%, respectively. His Whiff/Swing rates for four-seamers, sliders and changeups are a daunting 50.00%, 41.30% and 41.18%, respectively.
It’s becoming obvious that he can’t distinguish between the three pitches or pick up the ball early enough to be effective. Due to all these K’s, his contact numbers have become atrocious. When he swings, he makes contact only 66.1% of the time. His zone contact rate for 2015 is the lowest of his career, connecting only 71.1% of the time on pitches in the strikezone (78.3% career average). On pitches outside of the zone, his contact rate is only 56.8%. The Heatmap below shows he’s a little better connecting with pitches down than anywhere else:
He swings at 52.0% of the pitches thrown at him and with his inability to make contact or recognize pitches, it isn’t likely he’s going to see anything worthwhile that he can lay good wood on. Why would a pitcher throw him something over the middle of the plate when it’s become proven that he’ll swing at every other pitch, regardless of its location?
Zunino has put himself below the Mendoza line and will only get above it if he lays off the garbage that’s being thrown at him. His power potential is tantalizing—especially behind the plate—with a .198 ISO, but it’s meaningless when he’s chopping away aimlessly.
The Seattle Mariners want the 24 year old to be their catcher for the future, and he is solid defensively, but if he can’t lay off the K’s and improve his ability to make contact, there’s little reason to keep trotting him out there as a quasi-guaranteed out.
A platoon could be suggested, but his splits don’t really warrant such an idea. In 21 at bats against lefties, he’s hitting .190 with six strikeouts. Over the 75 at bats he has versus righties, Zunino has 34 K’s and a .187 average. The only way to fix the young backstop may be sending him down to the minor leagues to rebuild his confidence and refine his approach. Ideally, you want to see him stick it out at the big leagues and find himself, but it might not be the most efficient way for him to discover his stroke.
The potential is within Zunino, but translating that talent into success hasn’t happened yet. If he can limit his K% to 25% or less, he’ll see an immense improvement in output, however, asking him to cut down on his strikeouts may not be possible. Although he was drafted third overall and is still very young, being a backup or AAAA player just may be his destiny—unless he develops a much better eye and patient approach at the plate.
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