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Rick sez,
Something about Zunino: his numbers are less than impressive, but you know what? Those are very, as Doc would say, "hard rbi's". Mike doesn't pad his numbers in meaningless games. It seems every home run, every RBI, has an important role in a victory. I think WAR understates his real value, and not just behind the plate.
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1. I think 90% of even the most trenchant saber dogmatists would allow that WAR is tricky for catchers -- catchers handle pitching staffs; it wasn't long ago that "framing" was unmeasured; it is at least very plausible (and actually is taken as a "given" by those in uniform) that catchers impact ERA teamwide; there is SB%, there's position scarcity, yada yada yada. Get you a Gary Carter or a Pudge Rodriguez and you have gone a long, long way towards your pennant.
Coink-y-dink that in Zunino's first full year, the Mariners are finally contenders? I t'ink not, mate :- )
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2. If you take a fast look at "Win Probability Added" (offensively) you will find Zunino at -1.08 wins, worst on the M's other than Smoak and Ackley.
But if you concluded that Zunino has not been delivering "hard RBI's" you would be making a poor assessment. Zunino's "Positive WPA" is +5, highest on the ballclub behind the two Stars and Brad Miller, whereas his -6 "Negative WPA" sinks the overall total.
In other words, Zunino is a .200 hitter, yeah. He makes a ton of outs. This we knew. But when he does connect, he's doing a whale of a lot of damage for a guy with his OBP.
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3. Nobody is accusing Zunino of being a cleanup hitter in 2014. Everybody, notably Rick and me and McClendon, are congratulating him for chipping in a lot of important runs at the bottom of the order.
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Noodling
Zunino hit 30.2 degrees launch angle with Monday's 428-footer. Wasn't it Mojo who gave 30.0 as absolutely optimal? Zunino usually does that -- 28 to 33 degrees on the launch angle of his HR's, and often pulled to straightaway LF. His flyball ratio is high, and he is strong like Tatonka the bull. This guy is going to hit 20 homers as a rookie*, which total will be his career low.
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Zunino's EYE ratio (bb:k) is a grotesque eyesore, unlike this incarnation of Ackley's defense ... what is up with that? Is it possible for a young player to bounce back from 11 BB and 101 K to become a good hitter?
It's a logical fallacy for the sabermetrician to say ---- > "Joe Shlabotnik had an .002 OBP this year. Nobody ever made the All-Star team who had a rookie year like that." You know why it's a logical fallacy? Because occasionally rookies are brought up too soon -- brought up in a manner totally inconsistent with their peers.
Noodling back through almanacs, looking at players with terrible EYE ratios (but good PWR) as rookies ... there were:
Altuve is now like the #1 toughest dude to fan in the world, so ... it's just awesome to see his name in this context. Doesn't mean much.
One guy whose name does mean much, that being Mike Schmidt whose swing, shape, and power was extremely similar to Zunino's:
| Age | PA | 2B | HR | RBI | BB | K | AVG | OBP | SLG |
| 23 | 443 | 11 | 18 | 52 | 62 | 136 | .196 ! | .324 | .373 |
| Career | 10,000+ | 400+ | 548 | 1,600 | .267 | .380 | .427 |
Schmidt is like the #16 ballplayer who ever lived, so nobody's asking Zunino to aim at the bar, even to clonk his head on it. If Zunino wanted to aim at the best catchers who ever lived, that would still be a preposterous goal, but it would cut the HR's by a couple of hundred.
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Looking at players who had lousy EYE ratios with good ISO's as (young) rookies, you find a lot of people with Zunino's build, his upper-body torque, and his easy power:
along with Gaetti, Reggie Jackson, Gabe Kapler, Chris Young, and so on. Zunino's offensive player type is a classic in baseball, for a non-glove position, and classic in a good way. Scouts thirst for this blocky, transcendent power, provided that it isn't getting in the way defensively. Mike Napoli.
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Moe has pressed the Gary Carter comp. What does that look like, 500 PA's in?
Carter always was patient at the plate, as was Schmidt, had BB's from the word Go. On the other hand, age 22 (Zunino's now*), Carter had a pretty disastrous season -- 66 OPS+, lost his fulltime job. The next year he exploded for a .285/.350/.525 batting line and wound up top-100 all time in MVP voting shares.
To paraphrase Bill James: 2015, or 2016, will be the year that Zunino breaks out into a Carter-like batting line. If he is going to do it. Dr. D would guesstimate a 30% chance of that, 70% chance of something more Lance Parrish-y. But you realize Parrish made 8 All-Star teams, too.
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Credit Where Due, dept.
We might also noodle on the question of, why can Zunino provide "hard RBI" so consistently -- relative to his .201 AVG -- when Ackley, Smoak, and these other kids can't?
Gordon has pointed out that Zunino is "hitting blindfolded" -- swinging at sequences he isn't nearly ready to anticipate -- but the thing is, he just keeps swinging, don't he?
He doesn't freak out, he doesn't grow a Duck Dynasty beard, he doesn't try to cut in front of Jesus Montero at 1B through sheer org-boy attitude - Mike Zunino just keeps trying to do what he does.
The Mariners sat him down, said handle the pitchers, you just relax at the plate. This is precisely what Zunino has done. A lot of credit accrues to the Seattle Mariners because of this, along with their place in the standings.
Enjoy,
Dr D
That half the stuff I post on Shout Box is designed primarily to entice you to write something as wonderful as this! Lance Parrish, dude, sign me up! How I remember how that guy would come into the Kingdome and assert himself into every phase of the game.
Then what was the other half for?
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Kidding aside, please do feed the bears, amigos. Everybody wins, especially synergy.
I think Vegas would set the line at a Carter type of line in the next year or two at well under 30%, maybe in the 5-10% range. Carter in his first season as a 21 year old had nearly as many walks as strikeouts, to go along with 17 homeruns. Zunino, as you said, has an 11/101. Guys with those types of eyes/contact issues don't just take off the next year or two and level their K's and BB's.
The lists you compiled are filled with a lot of guys that have K rates in the low-mid teens, even in their first couple seasons. Zunino is sitting at 33% this year. Some of their EYE ratios are down right good, so I'm not sure what the comparison is. And many of those guys hit the big leagues at 20, 21 years old. Altuve K's 12% his first year as a 21 year old, with an .081 ISO, so not sure what the comp would be there.
-Mathews has a 10%bb/20%k ratio his first year at 21.
-Jones was 12/23 as a 20 year old
-Banks has a 6%/7% ratio his first year over 600 PA's
-Pudge K'd 15% hit first year as a 19 year old.
-Kemp is the one guy approaching Zunino levels, but in his second year, which would be Zunino's year this year at age 23, he cut his K's by 10 points to 21%. And he had K rates in the high minors in the mid teens. Mike K'd 29% last year in AAA.
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The point being, I think you are underselling exactly how big a gap he has to overcome to even sniff some of those guys numbers as rookies. Gary Carter NEXT year or the year after is just way too optimistic. The Parrish comp seems more reasonable, but even then Parrish had K rates in the 19-23 range in his early 20's.
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To me a pretty fair modern comp would be Arencibia. Catcher, 1st round pick, was a top 50 prospect in baseball coming up. His first full year, he put up a 7/27 ratio with good power. His next two years he put up worse EYE ratios, in the 4/29 range, very similar to where Zunino is now. So he's kind of like a warning light blinking at us. If Zunino doesn't either shore up his contact ability or start laying off pitches out of the zone, I fear he's headed down the same path. You can have all the power you want, if pitchers don't need to throw you pitches in the zone to get you out, they won't throw you pitches in the zone. See: Carlos Peguero.
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I ultimately do think he stops chasing as much as he has and settles around the 25% K mark, with a BB rate in the 5-8% range. We all know what kind of defender and teammate he is, so if he can just do that, he'll have a really nice career here.
But then again, Moe is a friend of mine and sensitivity is part of the equation. I don't say "hello" after a month away, and just haul off and tell him he's flat wrong, especially when I'm not in a position to do so confidently. We converse.
I could certainly be talked into 5-10% for Carter comp odds, though I would be friendly in my tone.
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Is there some reason you didn't take into account the evolving nature of K's in the game?
James pointed out, I think in 2011 or 2012, that while K's are beneficial to pitchers they are not detrimental to hitters, and this is a paradox in the game.
This has very suddenly percolated into organized baseball. Teams no longer care about strikeouts for hitters. Back in my day, they most certainly did. Whatever your K rate was, that was the lowest you could get it, because that's what was hammered into you again and again.
Nobody and I mean NOBODY, in 1975 much less 1955, was told "don't worry about your strikeouts. Just relax and do what you can."
So be careful relying so much on K rates 50 years apart, what say. If you're below 40 years old, you can't imagine the culture of baseball & hitter K's back then.
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It's not at all clear to me what Mike Zunino is. I wouldn't rule out his becoming the best player in baseball - or never getting any better at all. But maybe player projections are simpler than I think they are :- )
But I was just responding to the list of players from 50 years ago that you provided. Some of those guys, Altuve, Andruw Jones, Kemp, Jermaine Dye, are modern players. If you think we should limit the scope of the comparisons to those players that seems fair. Their EYE ratios in their second year would look like this...
Zunino---4%/33%
-Altuve---6%/12%
-Jones---12/23, but 11/15 in his age 23 season
-Kemo---5/21 (and I said this was probably one of the better comps, but he posted K's rates much lower in the upper minors)
-Dye---6/18
-Pudge---5/16 at age 21, 7/10 by age 23
These guys just aren't in the same class as Zunino in terms of hitter types.
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I'm confused by the notion that K's aren't detrimental to hitters. If I take two guys, both with a 5% walk rate, 200 ISO, 300 BABIP, but one has a 21% K rate and the other a 33% K rate, how can the latter possibly equal the production of the former? I think you are saying that SABR minded people don't mind K's as long as they OVERCOME it with something else, like BB's or SLUG %. If so, definitely, there has been a shift in thinking in baseball regarding this. But taken at face value, given two otherwise equal players, you'd always take the guy with the lower K rate, correct? Could you clear up what you meant by that?
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Bottom line for me is this. Mike Zunino is currently tied for the worst K% in baseball among all qualified players, a list which includes 163 players. Whatever you want to say about era, thinking inside the game changing, selling out for power, whatever, there's just no way around that being what it is. If he had a good walk rate to go with it, that would be one thing. He is 156th out of those 163 players in BB%. There's just no two ways around it. His eye ratio is worst in baseball in 2014 among qualified players. Literally, the worst. It would have been the worst last year as well by a wide margin. He has a loooong ways to go to even consider approaching the types of names you listed.
Been camping with my daughter and chasing summer steelhead for a couple of days. Trying to catch up.
I'll be more than glad to take a Lance Parrish. He'll do. And I won't be disappointed if he isn't quite The Kid.
But even after Gary Carter's rookie season, his odds of becoming Gary Carter were no greater than 30%, if you know what I mean.
Eenie or Meenie, this Moe will take either. (Cute, huh?)
We've got a guy who handles a terrific staff, terrifically well. He's got guts. And he hits the ball out.
I suspect his eye will improve. I think it is G who reminds us that Zunino "should" be in AA right now.
He's a keeper.
As James says, baseball is about the strike zone, and I have a hard time myself getting past a BB/K like that.
As you know, we pointed out originally the fact that Carter controlled the strike zone from very early. Zunino has a lot to prove, agreed.
Condolences on all three (four?) counts bro'.
In which James' batterymate Dave Fleming points out that catchers are far underrated by WAR, relative to every other position.
Fleming concludes,
Getting back to WAR: I’m a giant fan of the two versions of WAR at FanGraphs and Baseball Reference. I think it’s a tremendously useful statistic, and I’ll continue to use it
But I don’t think that it accurately measures the true values of catchers. Actually, I should be more specific about that. I think WAR probably does measure the value of catchers with some accuracy….if WAR rates someone like Gary Carter as being a better player than Ted Simmons, I think that’s probably correct.
The limits of WAR are in how they measure catchers against other positional players. If we hold that Johnny Bench is the greatest catcher in major league history, it stands to reason that he should rate near the greatest first baseman, right-fielders, and shortstops in baseball history.
Right now he doesn’t, at least not according to WAR. This has the potential to skew our perspective of all catchers: if we view Johnny Bench as being on par with Dick Allen or Larry Walker, we’ll bump historically great catchers like Gary Carter and Carlton Fisk into the ‘good’ camp. We’ll miss the rare genius of Joe Mauer’s career, and skip entirely the fine careers of catchers like Jorge Posada and Ted Simmons, players who are completely rational candidates for the Hall-of-Fame.
Good sho' Mo.
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There are counter-arguments .... you could argue that catcher is easily the least important position .... but it won't be ML managers making them.
......is my hero tonight.
When I was a kid and watching J. Bench hit a bunch of homers while D. Driessen played 1B, I could not understand it (and I was a catcher in my youthful "career.") It seemd to make so much sense to maximize the AB's that came J. Bench's way. But Sparky knew (WAY) better. There is no WAR ability to value how well a guy handles staff. It doesn't exist.
Guys like Bench and Pudge and Jorge have a WAR X factor that is not really well quantified. But it exist and it is a whole bunch.
Ergo Zunino.
I really don't care abouthis K rate...or his BB rate. If he OPS+'s in the 90 range and does his glovey job, he's a heck of a player. If he ends up being a .240 23 HR guy, be very thankful for what you've got.
If he's able to maintain his defensive skills for 5-8 years, and get his wRC+ in the 90-100 range, that's a very valuable player. Getting to that range though will no doubt require him to shore his EYE up some.
Wasn't it you, Doc, who pointed out some correlation between slugging catchers and World Series repeats or something along those lines? It certainly is difficult to list off HoF catchers without a ring. If not just random chance then there would seem to be more value in having a stud at that position making them more valuable than WAR shows. Their value in winning titles seems like it could be understated especially considering during the regular season a catcher sits more often than they need to during postseason when they get the rest with off days between games. With pitching rotations it's common knowledge but the starting catcher being able to go (nearly) every game is rarely mentioned. That's the hope or high end possibility anyway. With new collision rules the possibility of the lead catcher playing in every postseason game went up.
College catchers aren't usually up at his age and rarely do they do significantly better in their first full season. I think on a normal schedule Zunino might have made AAA by now. I mean he dominated well enough through AA that even his promotion to AAA wasn't too far fetched. Considering his trial by fire I'm really not concerned with his EYE at this point. He's not going back down to work on it. He'll adjust as he goes and I suspect he'll be just fine in the long run. Right now I'm just fine with his production anyway. He's an asset already even being Mendoza +11 HR or so on offense. I've got to figure he improves on this start but I understand the questions of how much and in what ways. Just don't have an answer.