Atlanta Braves: Marcell Ozuna doesn’t need to be Donaldson, he just needs to be himself

For Marcell Ozuna’s contract with the Atlanta Braves to be a success, he doesn’t need to replace Josh Donaldson‘s production. Ozuna needs to be himself and give a season towards the middle to high end of his career production.

Atlanta Braves new left fielder Marcell Ozuna has been good, and at times, a great player. Some may have argued that he was on the edge of something even bigger after a monster 2017 season with the Miami Marlins where he hit .312 with 37 home runs and 94 RBI. He also reeled in a gold glove, though he’s often criticized for his defense.

During his rookie season in 2013 with the Marlins, he showed potential, but only hit three homers in 275 at-bats. Then, the power came. From 2014 to 2019, he’s hit 145 home runs, and that includes the 2015 season where he hit just 10 home runs and spent some time at AAA.

Throwing out the 2015 season, he’s averaged 27 home runs per season, and over the past three seasons, he’s averaged 30 home runs. Ozuna produces runs too, averaging 100 RBI over the past three seasons as well.

After that great 2017 season, he was dealt to the St. Louis Cardinals, who gave up three prospects — one of them, a 2019 All-Star in Sandy Alcantara.

When you compare Ozuna’s contract, a one year, $18 million dollar pact — to Nick Castellanos four years at $64 million, and Josh Donaldson at four years and $92 million (with a fifth year option), it appears that Alex Anthopoulos did, indeed, get the best value.

Now, for the negative — Ozuna does strikeout a lot. In any full season, he’s never struck out fewer than 110 times. His high-water mark was 164 K’s in 2014, and he struck out 144 times during his excellent 2017 season. Otherwise, he’s been pretty consistent, around 110 to 115 strikeouts a year.

Ozuna’s on-base percentage generally hovers around .325. He’s never walked more than 64 times in a season, so ideally, you’d like to see that figure go higher. He did walk 62 times last season with St. Louis.

With Ozuna, I think a safe assessment is ‘what you see is what you get.’

Let’s look at 2019

Looking at his numbers, you could argue that Ozuna had the second best overall season of his career last year. He had his second highest home run and RBI totals, in line with previous seasons, and perhaps surprisingly, stole a career high 12 bases. The one chink in his armor could be a career low .241 batting average.

That batting average isn’t because he’s not hitting the ball hard. According to Baseball Savant, Ozuna ranked 15th in all of MLB in hard hit ball percentage. He also ranked 22nd in average exit velocity and tied for 19th when it came to barreling the ball. He did so in 8.6% of his at-bats. Ozuna swings freely and doesn’t have mercy on the baseball.

You should also note that Ozuna’s production could have been greater as he missed 28 games with fractured fingers. He hit 20 home runs (ten of those came in April) before the injury and drove in 62 runs, and possibly missed what would have been his third All-Star game.

So, Ozuna’s first half was good, but he cooled after returning from the injured list. He hit just nine home runs in the last 50 games he played in, and saw his average slowly slide from .260 to .241. However, that changed in the postseason.

Ozuna hit .429 against the Atlanta Braves in the NLCS collecting nine hits and hitting two home runs in game four. In the NLDS, he, along with the entire St. Louis offense struggled, but Ozuna still managed to go 3 for 12, and collecting two hits in Game 3 of the Washington Nationals’ four-game sweep of the Cards.

I didn’t forget about defense either — Ozuna has never made more than five errors in a full season. He’s got a gold glove. Sure, his routes might not be the most efficient and he’s a bigger, slower guy compared to some outfielders we’ve had — but not everyone can be Andruw Jones.

Either way, Ozuna was worth eight defensive runs according to baseball reference — Austin Riley was worth one. Regardless of what you believe about his defense, good or bad – he’s an upgrade.

A solid postseason performance is definitely a plus, and you can’t fault Ozuna for having a couple of months where he didn’t perform as well. After all, Josh Donaldson didn’t seem like a former MVP until June rolled around.

I don’t expect Atlanta Braves fans to be disappointed if 2020 is a repeat of the 2019 season, especially if he can manage not to miss a month.