The Guardians have designated catcher Mike Zunino for assignment, per a team announcement. Cleveland also optioned reliever Cody Morris to Triple-A Columbus while selecting right-hander Touki Toussaint onto the MLB roster.
A June DFA is surely not what the Guardians envisioned for their Opening Day catcher. Cleveland signed the veteran backstop to a one-year, $6MM free agent deal in December. It was a buy-low flier on a glove-first veteran. Zunino’s final season with the Rays had been ruined by thoracic outlet syndrome, but he was only a year removed from an All-Star appearance and a 20th-place finish in AL MVP voting.
The anticipated bounceback hasn’t materialized. Zunino has contributed very little offensively, hitting .177/.271/.306 over 140 trips to the plate. A lofty strikeout total is par for the course with Zunino, but this year’s 43.6% clip is high even by his standards. Including his .148/.195/.304 line in 36 games with the Rays before his ’22 campaign was cut short by TOS surgery, Zunino is a .163/.236/.305 hitter over his last 263 plate appearances.
A former third overall draft choice, Zunino has had a mercurial career offensively. He’s perennially near the top of the league in strikeout rate. At his best, however, he’s shown the ability to compensate for the whiffs with plenty of walks and huge power. Zunino blasted 33 homers with a .559 slugging percentage in only 109 games for Tampa Bay two seasons back. He’d also topped 20 longballs on three separate occasions early in his career with the Mariners.
When he’s not driving the ball out the yard, he’s among the sport’s worst offensive players. In just under 900 career games, he’s hitting .199 with a .271 on-base percentage. The swing-and-miss has become particularly problematic this season. Of the 336 batters with 100+ trips to the plate, none has whiffed more often than Zunino, who’s making contact on just 59% of his swings.
Offense isn’t the whole story, of course, particularly behind the plate. The Guardians tolerated well below-average hitting from Austin Hedges for years on account of his defensive acumen. Zunino comes with a similarly strong reputation for managing a pitching staff, but his public defensive marks this year have been poor.
Zunino has been charged with an MLB-worst five passed balls on the season. He’s been behind the dish for the fifth-most wild pitches. The pitching staff deserves some of the blame, but Statcast has estimated Zunino as allowing a league-high 10 more offerings than average to get behind him. He’s gotten average marks for his pitch framing this year and has thrown out a below-average 16.7% of attempted basestealers.
The struggles on both sides of the ball led the Cleveland front office to go in another direction. The Guardians were running with three catchers on the MLB roster, so the duo of Cam Gallagher and David Fry could be in for an uptick in playing time. Gallagher hasn’t hit in a backup role either, posting a .147/.177/.187 showing in 29 games. Bo Naylor has a strong .253/.393/.498 line through 60 games in Triple-A Columbus, and while the Guardians didn’t immediately call him up, there’s a strong argument for turning to the 23-year-old.
Whatever direction the Guards go behind the dish, they’ll be moving on from Zunino within the next few days. They have a week to trade him or put him on waivers. With a little over $3MM in salary still to be paid out, it’s likely he’ll clear waivers and hit free agency. At that point, another team could sign him for the prorated portion of the $720K league minimum.
Toussaint joined the organization on a minor league deal over the offseason. The former top prospect has appeared in parts of five big league campaigns between the Braves and Angels. He’s struggled to a 5.34 ERA over 170 1/3 MLB innings while working in a swing capacity.
He’s been pitching almost exclusively out of the bullpen with Columbus. Toussaint has worked to a 4.06 ERA in 37 2/3 frames over 20 outings. He has fanned over 30% of opponents with a quality 45.7% ground-ball percentage. He’s yet to solve longstanding control woes, though, as he’s walking nearly 15% of batters faced.
Toussaint will start tonight’s game in Arizona. Triston McKenzie had been slated to take the ball, but Zack Meisel of the Athletic tweets that he’s been scratched after experiencing some elbow discomfort. Toussaint has been working in two to three inning stints with Columbus, so it’s likely to be a bullpen day. He’s out of minor league options, meaning his stay on the roster could be brief unless Cleveland is willing to give him a lasting bullpen spot.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Bo Naylor on the way?
Omaha is closer than Columbus…
Zastryzny, now Zunino. Zoinks!
He must have learned how not to catch by Grandal. Hard to believe anyone has more passed balls, saved fewer wild pitches and thrown out fewer base stealers than the Sox’ albatross.
I can appreciate a team being decisive and willing to admit a move didn’t work out.
DonOsbourne;
True enough.
But the problem is that their other major FA signing this offseason was Josh Bell, and he’s been just as much of a disappointment.
A low revenue team cannot afford to make those sorts of mistakes. While not as disappointing as the Cardinals, the Guardians join the Cubs, Mets, Padres, and Mariners as the most underachieving teams this year. If they weren’t in such a weak division they’d be fighting to stay out of last place.
Orioles like collecting catchers what is one more
If I was a catcher the last place I’d want to go is Baltimore. How many innings would I get behind the best catcher in bb?
I don’t know, but the help wanted sign for catchers has been hung
After watching their third stringer’s (David Fry) performance last night, I jokingly said either Zunino or Cam Gallagher need to pack their bags. Zunino has been a HUGE disappointment – he had a total of 2 hits in the month of May, and those didn’t come until the last week of the month. SD ran all over him Wednesday night, and defensively he’s looked like a poor man’s Gary Sanchez. Maybe the Marlins will pick him up, but he’s not an upgrade over Stallings.
I’m shocked they cut their losses so quickly. The Guardians aren’t normally a team to give up on someone they still owe money to.
But unfortunately, this needed to happen. Bo will almost certainly be coming up (possibly even tomorrow if Touissant is only up to help the pitching staff for today), but Bo doesn’t need to do much to be an upgrade and he’s torching AAA so there’s nothing left to prove for him there. I was willing to live with Zunino striking out a ton if he provided some power and played good defense, but the power wasn’t there and the defense was bad too. It looked like pitchers didn’t trust him to block their breaking balls, and pretty much every pitcher on the team had a significantly better ERA when anyone other than Zunino was behind the plate.
Zunino seems like a great guy and I honestly feel bad for him because he’s been pretty much public enemy number one within the fanbase and that’s gotta be tough to handle. But from an on-field perspective, this was long overdue.
Feel bad for what? The guy is beyond aweful at the plate, he provides zero value. Being a great guy doesn’t and shouldn’t keep you on an mlb roster. He should not even be in the league at this point. Maybe if he didn’t suck so bad he wouldn’t be “public enemy number one”
I specifically said he should not still have been on the team, so if that’s what you took from my comment then you must have just ignored the first two thirds of it.
I’m just trying to look at it from the human side, because he’s gotten some serious hate from pretty much the whole fanbase that’s gone a little further than just playing badly. So thanks for proving my point I guess lol
“Bo will almost certainly be coming up….”
Fair enough.
Just what the Guardians need – another LH bat in the line-up. Opposing teams are already saving and calling up LH pitchers to face them, and their RH hitters can’t counter them.
Platoon advantages are great and all, but if that’s your only argument for not bringing up Naylor then it’s not a good enough reason to keep Zunino over him. It’s also not reasonable to blame Naylor for the fact that they’ve built a lineup dominated by left handed hitters.
Michael Chaney;
What I wrote is not my “only argument for not bringing up Naylor”. I and everyone else that follows the team to any degree knew that at some point this season Bo Naylor would be called up. Just as they know that George Valera will be on the ML team at some point in 2024. This infatuation the FO has with LH hitters goes back to when Shapiro was there and has never stopped. Probably something to do with the high wall in left-center.
Their only top 20 prospect that hits RH and seems like he might be a run producer is Jhonkensy Noel…and he’s ranked around 16th of their prospects. One guy switch hits, everyone else in the upper reaches of their farm system bats LH. This is asinine.
Rosario was their best RH bat against lefties in 2022, but he’s tailed off in 2023. Even those heralded youngsters called up this year that can hit RH – Tyler Freeman and Brayan Rocchio – look like line-drive Punch and Judy hitters at this point. They need 2 RH power bats in that line-up that can hit LH pitching and drive in 80-110 runs a year. Until that happens they’re just putting their LH hitting youngsters into no-win positions.
Sam your our comments are to much. Stop acting like you know everything.
It’s like this……
Cleveland’s LH hitters will continue to face RH pitching, but it’ll be against opponents better pitchers. Rather than face opponents #4 and #5 pitchers that throw RH where their LH hitters get a soft spot – they’ll continue to face LH pitchers those teams start in their place – whether they take them out of their bullpen or call them up from the minors.
This goes beyond bad roster construction. It goes to how they have built their farm system for well over 10 years now. They’re going to have to package up some of those LH hitters and get strong RH bats back in trade.
Winning teams in MLB have always been about balance. Give the manager multiple ways to win a game. The FO is penalizing both their manger and their LH hitters.
I agree with your view that they need to build a team that can hit better against lefties, but you’re coming off as very condescending if you’re implying that I don’t follow the team. Obviously we all knew that Naylor was coming up eventually, but your only initial reaction was that he might not hit lefties which made it seem like you thought Zunino should stay since he’s right handed.
It’s also worth noting that Naylor has an .804 OPS against lefties in AAA with more walks than strikeouts. It’s yet to be seen if that carries over to the majors, but let’s not pretend that he’s unplayable against lefties like his brother is.
Also, I like the idea of Noel and his upside (a right handed bat with elite power is pretty fun to dream on), but I’d be very surprised if he becomes any kind of major league run producer anywhere, but especially with the Guardians. He has too many holes in his swing that have gotten exposed as he’s gotten further through the minors, and if he makes it to Cleveland at all he’ll probably get the Jesus Aguilar treatment and get a few scattered at bats before getting dumped. I hope I’m wrong, but his profile is one that they don’t usually have a lot of patience with.
They’ve been trending toward cutting their losses in short order the past 2 seasons, which wasn’t the FO 3+ years ago. They tossed Yu Chang and Bobby Bradley overboard when it was clear they were’t gonna make it. They just pulled the plug on Richie Palacios, and they ran Plesac through waivers. I have to admire the new approach as opposed to when it was beyond obvious to the rest of us a guy wasn’t gonna work out.
Great points Mike.
I was at the Astros- Guards game on Saturday where he threw the ball into CF twice and just…wow. In all my years as a Cleveland fan, I have never heard the stadium boo our own players as badly as they did to Zunino. I didn’t think we were that kind of fanbase.
I also feel bad for him, but the writing has been on the wall for some time. Getting Naylor to avoid Super 2 status is the only reason he’s had this much time.
It’s a shame because he was a top prospect, but the Mariners rushed him to the big leagues before he really developed on the hitting side. I actually had a conversation with Edgar Martinez a few years ago who reiterated this and said that Zunino probably needed two more years in the minors before he came up. He was always solid behind the plate for the M’s, but he was a whiff-master with the bat. I hope he lands a backup job somewhere.
Saw Zunino with the M’s for many years in Seattle. Absolutely rushed through the minors during the Jack Zduriencik era. Just ruined the kid. Always chases the curve and looks so bad doing it.
Hopefully, he just needs more time to recover from the TOS surgury. He was never a superstar, but he was a capable starting C. Maybe he will be a nice surprise for some team on a spring training invite next year.
How does Cam Gallagher hold a job?
He plays for league minimum
He’s better defensively
Made 28M and not even batting .200. SMH
The Rays are going to sign Zunino once no one picks him up. Rays catchers have been terrible offensivly. Zunino knows the staff and hes comfortable in the Rays’ park. I think Zunino is going to get hot if only signed by the Rays
I doubt it very much. They never made an attempt to keep him. Besides, Bethancourt and Meija are far from the bottom of catcher offense. Which is where Zunino resides.
Zunino and Jared Walsh are the first hitters to have TOS surgery and so far the results have not been encouraging. While Zunino has always been a mostly terrible hitter with some power Walsh has struck out 23 times in 59 AB’s and bat speed just isn’t there
He doesn’t even walk that much. Averages 40 BB per 162 games. Always was a weird fit for the AVG/OBP oriented Guardians.
McKenzie to the IL, Touki to the pen, and Williams up this weekend I’ll wager
He’s better than anyone on the Red Sox.
Wong is much better than Zunino. I’d rather have McGuire too and I’m far from his biggest fan
Cleveland gave him time.. the results were pretty awful. I’m sure it wasn’t for a lack of effort from Zunino. Catching is such a demanding position to begin with.. then you add rehabbing from a serious surgery and learning a new staff. That is a lot to ask of anyone.
Hopefully to can bounce back and continue his career but he did not look anywhere near a major league caliber catcher with Cleveland.
“Out the yard”… really? Grammar isn’t optional for paid writers. It’s out OF the yard.