With the struggles that Marcell Ozuna is having to start the year, you have to wonder if the Atlanta Braves bought his stock at an all-time high.
There was a reason the Atlanta Braves weren’t willing to go beyond a certain year/number for Josh Donaldson after he had an MVP-like season for them in 2019.
He’s an aging player who has battled injuries and had one of the best seasons he’s ever had. It wasn’t likely Donaldson was ever going to repeat that performance, and so far he hasn’t in Minnesota.
They were in virtually the same situation with Ozuna going into this past offseason. An aging player who is coming off one of the best seasons of his career in what was a really small sample size.
On top of that, Ozuna is pretty much a full DH at this point even though the Braves are playing him in left field every night.
Now, Donaldson was five years older than Ozuna, and that certainly can’t be overlooked when comparing the two.
But I felt pretty confident in saying you might get two or three more years of a solid Ozuna — a St. Louis type of Ozuna — and that’s if he’s allowed to strictly DH.
The Braves decided to sign him anyway — not knowing if there would be a DH or not — for 4 years and $65 million.
It’s actually a pretty fair contract and a lot less than what the Twins gave Donaldson the offseason before. And it’s backloaded so he’ll make $12 million this year, $16 million next year, and $18 million in both 2023 and 2024.
But it’s still a huge contract for a Braves team not known for giving out big contracts to 30-year-old free agents.
And were the Braves signing him expecting to get 2020 Ozuna or St. Louis Ozuna?
Even if the Braves just get St. Louis Ozuna this is a good deal, but right now we’re not getting that from him.
And it’s one month into the season for a notoriously slow starter, so no need to panic yet.
However, Atlanta needs him to be a steady force in the middle of the lineup behind Freddie Freeman for this offense to work.
You could argue he’s the most important part of this lineup. You know what you’re going to get from Ronald Acuna Jr. and Freeman, but if Ozuna isn’t someone opposing pitchers are afraid of, suddenly this lineup looks really thin.
Just quickly looking at the advanced metrics for Ozuna in 2021, the main issue — as is the case with Dansby Swanson — is that he’s striking out entirely too much. He’s striking out nearly 30 percent of the time when his career norm is closer to 22 percent.
His hard-hit percentage would be a career-low if it stays where it is at 38.9 percent — his career average is 46.
Breaking balls are absolutely killing him as he has a whiff rate of 45.8 percent against them and his hitting just .105 against breaking pitchers. Particularly the slider is giving him fits, and I’ve always said I don’t know why more pitchers don’t continually throw the slider down-and-way against him. With his swing, he just can’t get to that pitch.
The numbers aren’t good and don’t really show any sign of him breaking out of it with an XBA of .213 and BABIP of .264.
You just have to rely on is history at this point and hope that at the end of the year the numbers will match what’s on the back of his baseball card.
It’s also possible playing in the field is becoming a detriment to him. There is certainly a chance that when the DH comes into the NL next year he’ll be able to relax and focus strictly on his hitting.
But the Braves need him to the guy that they went all-in on this past offseason and protect Acuna and Freeman in the middle of the lineup.