Zunino's MLE's
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MLE's
For your convenience, here are Zunino's major league equivalencies. Remember, the idea here is that an MLE is prone to predict future MLB performance about as well as MLB performance does. It's true that 25 homers MLE (which is like 52 in AA ball?) might not result in 25 homers, big league. But then, does every major leaguer who hits 25 homers, return to that level? Not even close.
Bill James gives 90 games as the typical "adjustment period" during which a player learns the pitchers in a new league. That is aside from developmental curves; it might take 90 games before a player's developmental arc resumes.
There aren't a lot of convenient ways to bypass this 90 games. You'll see blogs analyzing whether Mike Zunino is liable to add +0.5 or -0.5 WAR, compared to some fringe ML catcher who is 34 years old. This misses the point that Zunino's adjustment period -- and his learning curve -- have to occur sometime. How about having them over with by the time the Mariners are good?
GET ON WITH IT! ::pinkfloyd::
- Northwest League - no MLE's possible (Zunino hit .373/.474/.736 in thirty games)
- Southern League A - .277/.325/.467 in fifteen games
- Pacific Coast League AAA - .201/.234/.401 in forty-seven games ... 30 doubles, 25 homers prorated
If Zunino were actually to hit .201/.234/.401 for the Mariners, well, here are some recent M's catchers:
- .201/.234/.401 - Zunino, MLE
- .196/.293/.346 - Shoppach, now
- .192/.241/.192 - Sucre, now
- .208/.264/.327 - Montero, this year
- .222/.239/.381 - Olivo, 2012 (75 OPS+; did the same in 2011)
- .195/.230/.283 - Adam Moore, 2010
- .191/.293/.281 - Rob Johnson, 2010
- etc
Interesting! Zunino's MLE at Tacoma was a mirror image for Miguel Olivo's production.
Of course, Zunino's production line occurred after 45 games in the pro's... after 45 games in pro baseball, Miguel was still at his first stop, Arizona rookie ball. He was promoted from there to Modesto, rather than to Seattle.
Still, Miguel was promoted fairly quickly for a catcher, a mere 1500 at-bats in the minors. Seems quite possible that, over the course of 2013, the M's could see Olivo-like offense from Zunino. If they did, there's no telling how good Zunino would be in three years.
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Baseball Families
Zunino's father Greg was an NCAA star and a minor-league player; his nephew Gary is in pro baseball.
In the Ft. Lewis Ranger, we have an op-ed on the influence of fathers in sports and military. The current Will Smith movie After Earth is a very well-researched commentary on this phenomenon.
Zunino's obvious confidence and comfort level is no doubt due in part to his family background.