Rays Ink Zunino

The 29 year old backstop has inked a 1 year $3M deal with the American League Champions Tampa Bay Rays. The deal consists of a club option for 2022 which is valued between $4M-$7M depending on the number of games played per Ken Rosenthal.

Mike Zunino is an 8 year veteran who spent his first 6 seasons in Seattle before being traded to Tampa during the offseason in 2018. Zunino only appeared in 28 games in 2020 during the 60 game season and only tallied 11 hits, 4 of them being home runs. He then added 4 more home runs in the 2020 postseason.

In 28 games behind the dish Zunino allowed only 5 passed balls which was the best in the league. He allowed 11 stolen bases and threw out 4 runners giving him a CS% of 27%.

I don’t know if the Zunino signing affects JT Realmuto’s free agency but that’s one more catcher off the market which puts more eyes on Realmuto.

https://twitter.com/Ken_Rosenthal/status/1339287383297159169?s=20

https://twitter.com/TBTimes_Rays/status/1339284880505630720?s=20