Why Braves May Not Be as Interested in Marcell Ozuna

The Atlanta Braves don’t appear to be showing a ton of interest in Marcell Ozuna this offseason. We look at why that could be the case. 

While the Atlanta Braves under Alex Anthopoulos have done a great job of keeping their work quiet, it’s a little strange that we haven’t heard much about them being linked to Marcell Ozuna this offseason.

In fact, a recent tweet from Hector Gomez indicated that there are six teams showing interest in Ozuna right now and the Braves were not listed in that group.

The teams he did list include the Red Sox, Yankees, Dodgers, Mets, Twins, and Brewers.

Now again, the Braves keep things pretty tight in their camp, so not seeing their name here doesn’t mean they haven’t been keeping in contact with Ozuna’s camp.

In fact, I feel pretty confident that the two sides have been in close contact all offseason.

But I feel like it’s similar to what happened with Ozuna the past offseason. Essentially the Braves told him to give them time to explore other options (Josh Donaldson) and if nothing works out we’ll give you one year deal for $18 million.

There have been reports that the Braves were in on George Springer — although, I think their level of ‘being in’ was overblown — and it’s even been reported they have interest in J.T. Realmuto.

That to me says that Ozuna has always been at least third in the pecking order of offseason targets for the Braves.

You almost get the sense that they have Ozuna in their back pocket in case their top options don’t work out — at least that’s the way I’m choosing to believe it’s happening.