The smattering of former Florida Gators in Major League Baseball sent one of their own to the World Series in 2020. Catcher Mike Zunino was a member of the Tampa Bay Rays during their ill-fated October quest to a championship. Being one of the best baseball prospects to ever don the blue and orange, it’s worth taking a look at how well he played for Tampa Bay and what’s next for the backstop.
Bluntly, he was not a useful batter in Tampa Bay’s postseason run. Over the course of 19 games, he hit .170/.196/.396. According to wRC+, a metric designed to level any statistical offensive output and compare them on even terms, that line was a monstrous 45 percent below the league-wide average. Striking out almost half the time and walking only once was no help, either.
The bright spot in his largely unfortunate postseason campaign was the excellent rate at which he was hitting home runs. In that same 19-game sample in which he only got on base one out of ever five times at bat, he was hitting home runs at an above-average pace. That’s no small feat, but Zunino has impressive power locked away in his 6-foot-2-inch, 235-pound frame.
An argument could be made that he was getting unlucky, and on the surface, that argument may seem to hold water. On balls he put into play, Zunino’s batting average was only .217, whereas the league averages approximately .300 on balls in play. This measurement (referred to as BABIP) is generally thought of as an indicator of luck. Higher than .300, and a player was overly fortunate. Lower than .300, and he may not have played up to his true talent level.
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