is a long-term asset to any team that doesn't have Gary Sanchez on the roster. That's a player who's worth 2 WAR on a DOWN year, and 5 WAR on an UP year.
But I'm leaning with Doc. Zunino got all kinds of attention from writers at places like FanGraphs with his late season heroics, so it's not like everyone looks at him and sees a pumpkin. It's *always* 'safer' to bet the under on a performance, which is why all the projection models (like Steamer) pull EVERY great performance down, going so far as to essentially ignore it if that great performance only lasted a single year.
But when you can look at a player's performance and see real, concrete reasons why that player leapt a plateau, you've got a foothold for staking out the over position as a worthy one. Zunino's BABIP is indeed worrisome, but not incredibly so. Giancarlo Stanton, another pure PWR guy, carries a lifetime .317 BABIP--a number which is weighed down by the last three seasons' average of ~.290. Heck, Ryan Howard's BABIP for the earliest of his seasons reads like this:
.375
.354
.356
.333
.328
.285
.325
.332
.303
So it's not impossible for a guy with ~80 power and sky-high K-rates to end up with eye-popping BABIP's. Even Mike Cameron's BABIP back in his M's career was over .300 year-in, year-out.
The question, to my mind, is more 'Do you believe Zunino is now, after the 2017 campaign, in that rare ~80 PWR territory?' If the answer is 'yes'...well then his most recent BABIP numbers are the most valuable in assessing what he'll produce going forward. If the answer is 'no,' then you comfortably take the 'under' on his projections going forward because, really, even Mark Trumbo with a + C mitt is a serious asset and immediate upgrade to just about any team in baseball.