Mike Zunino is out of the Cleveland Guardians 40-man roster. Getty Images
Mike Zunino (32, Cleveland Guardians), catcher with a batting average of 10%, was classified as out of power.
The Cleveland team treated Zunino as a designated for assignment (DFA) on the 17th (Korean time). Cleveland sent right-handed bullpen Cody Morris to minor league Triple-A and called up right-hander Tookie Tusang. Zunino’s DFA leaves Cleveland’s 40-man roster with only three catchers: Cam Gallagher, David Fry and Bo Naylor.메이저놀이터
Zunino joined Cleveland on a one-year, $6 million (7.7 billion won) short-term contract in December of last year. Expectations were high as a veteran hostess, but the poor performance was serious. He appeared in 42 games, and he had a batting average of .177 (22 hits in 124 at-bats) with 3 home runs and 11 RBI. He had a combined OPS of on-base percentage (0.271) and slugging percentage (0.306) of just 0.578. Considering that Wilson Contreras (St. Louis Cardinals, 0.639) has the lowest OPS among catchers who have filled the required at-bats, it was actually the lowest level of offense among the league’s masters.
Zunino has hit 149 home runs in his big league career, but his career batting average is only 0.199. Getty Images
Zunino was a super-special prospect who was nominated third overall in the first round of the 2012 rookie draft. In the first round of that year, Carlos Correa ranked first overall, and Byron Buxton (above Minnesota) ranked second. He entered the big leagues in 2013 with high expectations, but his jagged offense was always a problem. There are four times over 20 homers, but batting average around 20% was a problem every time.
The batting average in 2021, when he hit 33 homers, the most in a single season, was only 0.216. This season, accuracy has declined, and even long hits have decreased, and productivity at bat has dropped noticeably. To make matters worse, he was exposed to defensive anxiety and was eliminated from Cleveland’s main power.
Zunino’s MLB career (11 years) has a batting average of 0.199, 149 homers and 372 RBIs. He hit his first 30 home runs in 2021, and was also named 20th in the American League Most Valuable Player (MVP) voting. That year, he was also selected as an All-Star for the first time in his life and had a career high season, but an injury last year ended the season early. In this season, when attention was focused on his transfer to Cleveland, he cried over his “sluggishness.”