Atlanta Braves: The Upward Trajectory of Marcell Ozuna
On January 21st the Atlanta Braves made another splashy free-agent acquisition this offseason. We take a look at the improvement in Ozuna’s game last season.
Atlanta Braves‘ fans were left reeling with shock when news broke that Josh Donaldson had signed a four-year pact with the Minnesota Twins.
We had talked ourselves into the impression that the Braves would lay down as much as four-years and $100 million for the 34-year-old slugger.
Ultimately, Alex Anthopoulos (painfully) had other plans. Anthopoulos has since confirmed that Donaldson loved his time with the Braves and wanted to give us the last opportunity.
However, Anthopoulos and his studious front office refused to budge from the determined value of the player.
Anthopoulos let his old friend from their Toronto days – a friend that made him look brilliant by winning the AL MVP in his first season there – head back to the American League.
There had to be more to this plan than simply being unwilling to overpay (by their determination). It turns out…there was.
The New Cleanup Hitter
In a deal similar to the one-year, extra dollars to prove yourself deal we gave Donaldson in 2019, Marcell Ozuna will receive $18 million to prove he’s worth a long-term deal with a high AAV next season. Teams are a little hesitant due to the drop off from his All-Star campaign in 2017.
GM, Alex Anthopoulos said something to that effect,
“We’d be happy with what he did the last few years, but we think there’s that upside in him to be even better.”
A one-year deal carries little risk and keeps the doors open for prospects Cristian Pache and Drew Waters. Pache and Waters make up two of the Braves’ top three prospects and they are both outfielders.
With all that being said, we are excited to bring Ozuna on board. There was some concern over his arm issues and drop off in production from his massive 2017 campaign, but there’s no denying what kind of contributor he’s been.
In the next few slides, we’ll take a look at areas of Ozuna’s game in which he made big strides last season.
Career Numbers
Marcell Ozuna showed a glimpse of things to come in his first full season with the Marlins in 2014 when he blasted 23 homers and 85 RBI in 565 ABs. The next season his slugging percentage dropped from .455 in 2014 to a paltry .383 in 2015.
Ozuna really turned a corner for the Marlins at age-25 in 2016 when he made his first All-Star game and slashed .266/.321/.452 and blasted 23 2B, 23 HR, and 76 RBI.
The following year, things got even more spectacular as he was an All-Star, Top-15 in MVP voting, Gold Glover, and a Silver Slugger. That season, Ozuna slashed .312/.376/.548 with 37 HRs and 124 RBI.
Between 2016-2019 Ozuna has averaged 28 homers, 94 RBI, and slashed .277/.339/.478. His OPS+ during that time is 119. He’s a really good baseball player.
Cardinals Years
Ozuna has spent the past two seasons with the St. Louis Cardinals. His 2018 was not a terrible year but had to be a let down after the monstrous 2017 he posted with the Marlins.
In 2017 his OPS+ dropped from 149 to 106. His 37 homers turned back into 23 (the same number he hit in the year prior to his 37-homer breakout.)
His average was still solid at .280 but his OBP fell by 51 points.
Last year, his average dropped to a career-low .241 and his OPS+ remained at just 107.
So, who is he? Was 2017 real or a mirage? Since 2016 his HR totals look like this: 23, 37, 23, and 29.
It’s easy to understand why Ozuna perhaps had a different value of himself than the teams saw over the course of a long-term deal. He COULD be worth a lot more…now he gets to prove it with the Braves, just like Josh Donaldson did last year.
Optimism for Ozuna
We’ll start with his arm. The former gold-glover was nagged by fans about his throwing arm as a result of a nagging case of tendinitis accompanied by inflammation. How badly did it affect his arm?
In 2015, his average velocity was just a tick over 92 mph, which was good enough to place him in the top tenth of Major League outfielders.
In 2018 that number had dropped to 78 mph, or last place.
By April of 2019, Ozuna admitted his arm was at about 55% health-wise. He had offseason surgery to clean it up and appeared to have made improvements over his 2018 season. Hopefully his arm will be in good shape for the Braves in 2020.
Flyballs + Power = Dingers
Ozuna ranked in the 93rd percentile in exit velocity and 96th in hard-hit percentage in 2019.
Last season Ozuna was right near his career average with 35.2% of his batted-balls being hit in the air.
Ozuna greatly improved his HR/FB ratio over 2018’s down year. In 2018 he converted just 13.9% of his flyballs into homers. Last season, he converted the second-highest number of his career with 22.1% of his flyballs leaving the yard.
Remember, in 2017 he hit 37 homers with a 23.4% HR/FB ratio.
These hard-hit flyballs translated to the second-highest home run total of his career, and he only played in 130 games.
In his 37-homer season, Ozuna hit a home run ever 16.5 at-bats.
Last season, Ozuna hit a home run every 16.7 at-bats.
More reasons for optimism
There were quite a few other positive indicators from last season for Marcell Ozuna.
- His 29 HRs and 89 RBIs in just 130 games had him on an extremely good pace.
- His .243 average could be partially attributed to a .259 BABIP, which is well below his career mark of .315.
- Ozuna’s career walk rate stands at 7.5% and yet last year it surged to an all-time high of 11.3% with the Cardinals.
- His .474 Slugging percentage was the second-highest of his career. Second only to his 2017 season in which he slugged .548.
- Steamer and Depth Charts have him projected at a .495 slugging percentage in 2020. Those are primarily based on past performance and age.
- On a one-year deal, he’s extremely motivated to stay healthy and show what type of hitting machine he can be.
- Last season his groundball rate reached an all-time low of 41.4%, good for nearly five points below his career average.
- His 23.4% line-drive rate was 3.6% higher than his career average and bodes well for his batting average moving forward.
- He destroyed the Braves in the NLDS with a .429/.478/.857 slash line.
Ozuna played an awful lot like the player we saw in 2017. Like Alex Anthopoulos said, any version of the player we’ve seen the past few years is going to be a huge boost to this club. The upside for a monster season is definitely there.
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He was on his way to a monster season in 2019 and was a monster in the NLDS against Braves’ pitching. Hopefully, he’ll be a monster for the Braves in 2020.