If you had given up hope on Mike Zunino before the 2016 season, I wouldn’t have blamed you in the slightest.
Even though Seattle’s dinger-obsessed ex-GM Jack Zduriencik drafted Zunino in the hopes that he’d be a force in the Mariners lineup for years to come, success at the plate never really materialized for Zunino in his first few years:
The hitting numbers in his first two years were disappointing, but ultimately palatable because of his solid defense and excellent pitch-framing skills.
There’s no sugarcoating how terrible Zunino was in 2015, though, and it was the first time he finished with a negative WAR (-0.5). His strikeout rate was at an all-time high (34.2%), and his season was characterized by sad strolls to the dugout.
In the offseason, new GM Jerry Dipoto brought in Chris Iannetta to be the starting catcher, while Steve Clevenger was slated to provide back-up duty, all but assuring Zunino had no spot on the big-league roster. Fortunately, Zunino wasn’t destined to toil in Tacoma for the entire year. At the end of June, Zunino’s call-up may have been necessitated by Clevenger fracturing his hand, but he certainly earned his chance as well, hitting 286/.376/.521 with a 138 wRC+ across 327 minor league plate appearances.
Although it has unequivocally been proven by science seems like nothing good ever happens to the Mariners, Zunino did have some success in his brief 2016 stint. Here’s a look at his season stats:
It was encouraging to see Zunino finally drawing walks at an above-average rate and posting an above-average wRC+ for the first time in a season, albeit in a partial season. His efforts were good enough to accumulate 1.2 fWAR across 192 plate appearances.
Dig deeper, however, and the monthly splits tell a different story:
Whatever adjustments Zunino made in Tacoma clearly paid off initially, as he had a Trout-esque 169 wRC+ in July, and his 20.6 K% was incredibly uncharacteristic of the Zunino we’re accustomed to. He was also able to sustain some of that success into August, but his K% continued to rise and topped out at an alarming 40.3% in September, while his wRC+ cratered at 72.
Even though 2016 was statistically Zunino’s best season at the plate, the way he finished likely made many fans wonder whether this success was merely a mirage.
2017:
How did Zunino’s 2017 season kick off? Well, let’s just say that if you were overly pessimistic about Zunino and expecting a worst-case scenario, you probably didn’t aim low enough. Here are his stats through May 4th (the date before his demotion to Tacoma):
Down in Tacoma, Zunino hit .293/.356/.707 and had an 8.9 BB% and an 11.1 K% across 45 plate appearances before being recalled to the Mariners on May 22nd. But given the disparity in talent level between AAA and the MLB, coupled with his performance earlier in the season, there were likely few, if any, expectations for Zunino.
So, naturally, he punished the hell out of the baseball for the rest of the season:
In spite of his early-season play, his post-call-up heroics were good enough to bump his season stats to a very respectable .251/.331/.509, 126 wRC+, and 3.6 fWAR. Additionally, his defense improved, as his FRAA (Fielding Runs Above Average) and Framing Runs at the end of the season were 1.0 and 5.3, respectively, which are clear improvements from the time the aforementioned Lookout Landing article was published.
What about his performance over the course of the season?
This is much more encouraging than his 2016 splits. If we exclude the few games he played at the beginning of May before his demotion, July is actually the only month post-call-up where he’s a below-average hitter, and even then, the 95 wRC+ is barely below league average. There is also considerable improvement in his K% as the season progresses, and he additionally finishes the season with a red-hot September.
Admittedly, when viewing his early-season struggles, 80 PAs isn't the biggest sample size, but what if we compare Zunino’s pre and post-call-up contact profiles?
And just for later reference, here’s his contact profile for the entire season:
There are certainly some good signs here. Zunino's hard-hit percentage increases by a few points, and his line-drive percentage increases by 7 points. Even though power hitters can sustain HR/FB rates of around 20%, Zunino's second half HR/FB rate of 29.4% is probably unsustainable.
How much of Zunino’s results can be attributed to "luck" (or lack thereof)? His pre and post-call-up BABIP are .286 and .373, respectively. For the entire season, it was .355. This is significantly higher than his career BABIP through the 2016 season (.249). We know that Zunino's increased BABIP can be partially explained by his career bests in LD% and Hard%, and if he keeps it up, his BABIP could perennially hover near (or closer to) the league average. Still, only the very best hitters in the league can sustain BABIPs in the .350 range, so a decent portion of Zunino’s BABIP/hitting success can probably be considered lucky.
2017 vs. Career Tendencies:
I’m going to shift gears a bit and compare Zunino’s 2017 season in its entirety against all of his previous seasons. The first zone profile in each pair represents his results from 2013-2016, while the last zone profile indicates his results from 2017.
Did Zunino’s swinging tendencies change at all last year?
One thing I noticed right away is the decreased percentage of swings on outside pitches that aren't strikes. If you look at individual years, there were also similar results on his outside swinging tendencies in 2015 and 2016, but last year was the best Zunino has been at laying off those pitches.
On the other hand, Zunino has become more aggressive on middle-in and up-and-in pitches that aren’t in the strike zone. But why? Is he getting good results from doing that?
Nope, not really. He is increasingly punishing pitches in the middle and bottom of the strike zone, though. But his ISO at the top of the strike zone was rather underwhelming–any reasons why?
Welp, looks like he's whiffing more often at pitches that are located there. Maybe Brad Adam can refer Zunino to his LASIK specialist? But seriously, what is going on here? These are good pitches to swing at--pitches that Zunino should be making contact with more frequently.
Throughout the 2017 season, I frequently observed Zunino missing hittable fastballs at the top of the strike zone. What if we isolate his whiff percentage to four-seam fastballs only?
Zunino certainly had more difficulty on high fastballs in 2017 than previous years. Remarkably, his 2017 whiff rate on four-seamers at the top of the strike zone was higher than his overall 2017 whiff rate.
Zunino's contact rates according to pitch type tell a similar story:
Excluding the knuckleball and slow curve (only 24 pitches combined between the two), Zunino's Z-Contact% on fastballs was lower than any other pitch type in 2017. Furthermore, the only pitch that he had a lower Contact% on was the changeup. It's bizarre to me that Zunino would have so much trouble seeing the fastball (maybe he has difficulty with the high-velocity ones?), given how many players in the league struggle to hit anything that isn't a fastball, and it's certainly something worth keeping an eye on in 2018.
Looking Ahead:
2017 was easily Zunino's best season to date, and although his .355 BABIP is probably unsustainable, his line-drive and hard-hit percentages were the highest they've ever been. Zunino has also made great strides in laying off outside pitches, but on the other hand, he's increasingly swinging at inside pitches. It's also worrisome how often he whiffed on fastballs located in the strike zone, but that almost seems a bit fluky to me (unless it isn't). Zunino's contact percentages in 2016 (64.6%) and 2017 (63.8%) represent career lows, but his ISO has also never been higher than in those two years (.262 and .258, respectively).
Depth Charts and Steamer are both predicting that Zunino will post a perfectly-average 100 wRC+ in 2018. When everything is going right for Zunino, the upside is massive, but when it all comes crashing down, his floor is actually a bottomless pit. Given the volatility he's shown throughout his career, I think these are pretty reasonable projections. Zunino at his worst can be painful to watch, but there's no denying that the last two seasons have easily been his best offensive performances (could it have anything to do with a certain hitting coach, perhaps?). Maybe I'm overly optimistic (warning: don't ever do this for anything Mariners-related), and, barring some more BABIP magic, I'm certainly not expecting anything near his 2017 post-call-up wRC+ of 146, but I'd like to think Zunino has a good shot to outperform these projections.
Note: all statistics, tables, and charts were derived from FanGraphs and Brooks Baseball