For a minute early in the offseason, it felt like Marcell Ozuna was going to have a normal free-agent process. A couple of loose connections hit the rumor mill, the usual “AL team needs a DH bat” dots got connected, and Atlanta Braves fans could reasonably assume he’d land somewhere in that familiar middle-class bidding lane.
And then…crickets. It’s been radio silence ever since — and for a hitter with Ozuna’s recent peak, that kind of quiet is a tell. And once you lay his 2024 and 2025 side-by-side, you can see why clubs might be treating him like a very specific, conditional purchase.
Marcell Ozuna’s market has cooled in a way that should worry the Braves
Ozuna played 162 games in 2024 and put together a monster season posting a .302/.378/.546 slash with 39 homers, 104 RBI, a .925 OPS, and a 154 OPS+. Even by modern “inflated offense” standards, that’s star-level production. He also finished with 4.3 WAR — which, for a bat-first player who’s mostly living at DH, is a pretty loud statement about just how much damage he did.
And then 2025 hit like a cold splash of water. Ozuna dropped to 145 games and a .232/.355/.400 line with 21 homers, 68 RBI, a .756 OPS, and a 113 OPS+. His WAR dipped to 1.6.
So here’s the blunt version of what teams see:
- OPS: 2024: .925 | 2025: .756 (-169)
- OPS+: 2024: 154 | 2025: 113 (-41)
- HR: 2024: 39 | 2025: 21 (-18)
- SLG: 2024: .546 | 2025: .400 (-.146)
- AVG: 2024: .302 | 2025: .232 (-70 points)
- WAR: 2024: 4.3 | 2025: 1.6 (-2.7)
So now the market question becomes less “Can Ozuna still hit?” and more “Are we buying the 2024 guy… or paying for the decline?”
That’s where Atlanta’s situation gets awkward, because the Braves know better than anyone that Ozuna can still look like a middle-of-the-order wrecking ball. But the rest of the league is probably staring at the 2025 version and doing the math. If you’re primarily a DH, you don’t get to be “kind of” productive. And if teams think the power spike is behind you, they’re not racing to commit a roster spot that can’t flex.
The irony is that 2025 actually showed some “professional hitter” traits — Ozuna still walked 94 times in fewer plate appearances than 2024 (when he walked 74). The on-base percentage held up better than the average did, proving he wasn’t completely washed off the planet.
But free agency isn’t about “still useful.” It’s about certainty. And the market is treating Ozuna like a player who requires a clean DH slot, a team comfortable with the downside, and a price that reflects the fear that 2024 was the peak and 2025 was the warning label.
This sets up the most uncomfortable possibility of all: the best “market” Ozuna has might be the one he already knows — a Braves front office that has seen both versions up close and has to decide whether Ozuna is worth bringing back on. Either way, the quiet isn’t random. It’s the league telling you it has questions. And the Braves can’t afford to ignore what those questions imply.