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After all this time, Mike Zunino can play. We can let that in.

Fans are impatient. We are ready to call a player a bum after a week of bad hitting, and kick that bum to the curb after two. Get tossed, ya bum. But we all have our guy. You know, your guy? That kid you saw in Double-A, who you felt just had something. You hug him close. He becomes, for you, untouchable. A cornerstone who just needs a little more time. He is distinguished from other fan favorites. He isn’t a star, or an aging veteran, or even a clown. To be a clown, and simply enjoy his antics, you’d have to admit he wasn’t a star, and he is a star. He’s just not a star yet. He scuffles and strikes out and strives, and others move on. Honestly, what hope is there of a good breaking ball at this point? He’s not a prospect anymore, but damn it, he’s still your prospect. Maybe you have a couple of them. Maybe a couple of them work out. That’s where you start to lose your feel.

We think of it as something akin to loyalty, and we want to categorize it as virtue. You’ve committed. We read in Revelation 3:16, “So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” We know fandom as fury; a hot, devoted act of faith, with those who equivocate bound to be expelled. We spit you out! But really we’re just being stubborn. There’s nothing inherently moral about enduring. Of course, we can persist if we want. We’re fans, and our stakes are low. We think about the game so much of the time, and these are our guys.

I used to think that Mike Zunino was my guy. Even in the rough spots of 2014, he was saved by his prodigious power, or the promise of it, and the pitch framing, and a prospect pedigree that demanded we allow him more time. The Mariners had messed him about, you know. He was promoted too early. He’d get his hacks in and it would be fine. This was like Triple-A, only harder. The trajectory seemed to point decidedly upward. In 2015, the failures began to mount. He’d hit a home run, and I’d be too excited. Not just that he’d hit it far, but that he’d hit it at all, that he’d even made contact. I could hear myself being ridiculous. I could hear others tiring of me. This was not the start of a turnaround; this was a desperate pleading for Tacoma. He ended the year hitting .174/.230/.300, with a .196 TAv and a lost look. When rosters expanded, he was not asked back.

And I realized Mike Zunino was not my guy. I had let too much of the cold in, and a good share of the lukewarm. I mentally adjusted his projections down. I grappled with reality. I hoped, but I also hedged. I wondered what he might do. I let in what he was. I told myself the truth.

Humans are said to harden as they age, their knowledge calcifying. We become increasingly intimidated by new buttons and gizmos. I haven’t experienced that yet, though perhaps it is coming. I wonder if I’ll notice right away, or if like aches and pain and a reluctance to stay up too late, it will sneak up on me. Maybe. I think though, whatever comes later, we spend our thirties feeling less certain. The more I’ve seen of the world, the less sure of anything I become. I’m at times overwhelmed by its cruelty and complexity. I find myself clinging with greater desperation to process and inquiry. Baseball players play well or poorly, and we try to figure out why, and while I think it ought to be fun, I also want it to be true. I need to know how to suss things out. Not because I do not feel, but because presented with a tableau at once murky and vibrant, I risk feeling too much, being too wounded, too jubilant, too certain. Of forever exclaiming “THIS!” and “YAS!” and other sounds, when a smirk or sigh would do. It’s too changing and too nuanced and too hard to be convinced of the hot and cold.

Especially in our larger moment, I find myself attracted to facts. I’m keen to thread them together, test their links, then replace the parts of the chain that prove to be faulty. I hope that these chains will tether me to something real. Of course, the funny thing is that with these facts come our reactions to them. It’s all bound up together, these facts and feelings, even when they’re sensible. They always sneak back in. Our states are on fire and flooded; I feel dread. The Mariners teeter on the brink of another year wasted; I feel disappointment. The more I let in the facts, press their strength, the more I let in the rest. But the hot and cold become tempered, lukewarm. The feeling is there, but changed along with the shifting world. The exclamations are rarer. I’m too tired sometimes. This made me worry at first, thinking I had lost something, unable to access the fire and fury. Was this what other writers meant when they talked about their fandom slipping away? Despite a sense that feeling less would make things more peaceful, more grounded, would it also be hollow?

Which brings us back to Mike Zunino. 2017 started with more scuffling. Old habits emerged. All my facts told me what they meant. I felt sad. Zunino was demoted. I shook my head and told the truth. Then he came back, and started hitting. My heart tightened. Not the skipped beat of someone who had always known, all fire and fury, but of someone who had doubted, and sighed deeply, and wondered about the damage of so much failure, and then allowed herself to be surprised. I carried with me this chain of facts, and I had to make room for others. New facts, good facts. The lukewarm changed, fueled by a respect for the struggle that had come before. It was so hard for him, and now it was easier. I was buoyant, though still grounded. In this state, the lows of the cold and the highs of the hot didn’t average out to something lukewarm but brought me to something else entirely. I feel an earned joy, a true joy. And it is wonderful.

Mike Zunino was a bad baseball player for a time. That time felt like it might stretch forever. Now, Mike Zunino is hitting .248/.331/.507. He has 23 home runs. His hands have quieted; he’s stealing strikes again. As catchers go, he’s a good one. He’s known the crucible. He appears to be, after all this time, a major leaguer. He could always fail again. Maybe that 37 percent strikeout rate will be the fact in the chain we remember. But considering what we’ve seen, the reality to which we’ve been tethered, we find ourselves in an informed state of joy. And we can let that in.

Thank you for reading

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Nacho999
9/16
I'm in an AL keeper league and grabbed Zunino the year before last when he was ripping it up at Triple A. Much like Aaron Hicks, Byron Buxton and countless others I feel like I can see past the ineptitude most of the time when a player is rushed. One of my strengths in fantasy is procuring the post hype out of favor player at just the right time. Mike Zunino?, well, it took a Busload of Faith to get by as Lou Reed once said. I generally have a very strong roster each spring and have to choose from over 20 players. I have to leave 5-7 players behind most teams would protect and submit a roster of 15 plus five minor leaguers pre-draft each year. Our minor league roster rules are that the player cannot have more than 15 games played at the big league level prior to being placed on the roster. If he gets a September call up, a la Lucas Giolito, you can activate him in an injured player's spot and still move him back to the protected roster provided he doesn't cross the 15 game mark. I work that roster hard. It's such an advantage to come into a draft with what amounts to an extra five players that can step right onto your active roster. This past year may have been my best ever; I submitted Gary Sanchez, Aaron Judge, Ryon Healy, Bradley Zimmer and Lucas Giolito. Sometimes, players like Judge are on this list for three years waiting for him to get his chance. You also have to fight the urge to activate a guy like Gary Sanchez in the present season (2016) so you can take advantage of him maintaining his minor league eligibility the following year...Anyway, back to Zunino...

I have some really difficult choices to make, but one of them was keeping Mike Zunino at $4 over Didi Gregorius, also at $4. If Didi hadn't gotten hurt in the stupid World Baseball Classic I never would have let him go, but I figured I could buy him back on the cheap knowing he'd be out at least a month so I kept Zunino. I did get Gregorius back thankfully, but now his price tag is $13 going on $16...Costly. Catching in the AL is an absolute nightmare and if you can line up Sanchez and Zunino you have a huge advantage over the other players. But six weeks into the 2017 campaign it didn't look so hot for either player. Sanchez strained a groin trying to steal second base mere days after missing most of the month of April with another injury. Zunino had started so slow they had demoted him. I was frantically trying to trade for Wilson Ramos or some other catcher who might come back later in the year at that point. No go. I was looking at below league average production at catcher when I was certain I had a strength. Frustrating to say the least. The good news was Zunino was rumored to only be headed down to check his head. He wasn't going to be gone too long with calcified Carlos Ruiz as his backup. I waited it out. Those homers and improvement at Triple A the year before still had me mesmerized. I knew he was a good catcher and that Seattle wanted him to succeed. I exercised patience even leaving him active with really no alternative at the time. I already had roster space issues with Leonys Martin losing his job and Greg Bird hurt. I held my breath he would be back and give me 12 and 35 the rest of the summer. Then he got the call and started mashing. How many RBIs did he have in June (I think it was June)? 31? A 2 HR, 7 RBI game was followed by a game winning homer a few nights later. His confidence was really coming on. He slumped a bit after that, but he had arrived. No more Triple A for Big Mike. Today, as you noted above, 23 homers, but he's going to wind up with 25 and 60+ RBIs before it's over. But what I love is his walk total is going to clear 40 and his BA sits at .251 as I type. He hit .199, .174 and .207 the past three years. .251 represents a major step forward. Our faith has been vindicated! He probably won't make 400 at bats either. The option to protect 15-20 guys probably sounds like a ton when it comes to keeper leagues, but factoring in price tags, opportunity, the likelihood of success and the likelihood of a team panicking after a few bad weeks is brutal. I'm very happy to be on the Big Z bus. I feel like I earned it weathering blistering criticism from my league mates and losing other players I probably should have protected instead in the hopes of a big position scarcity score. I'm psyched. Now I can team up Sanchez & Zunino for at least two more years. Sounds like you kept the faith for the most part too Meg. Congrats. Obviously I enjoyed the article...Thank you...