The Atlanta Braves didn’t necessarily need to upgrade their outfield — they have a bigger issue at third base, certainly — but they pounced on a bargain by signing Marcell Ozuna to a one-year, $18 million deal that will also cost them a draft pick. It’s a marginal improvement of a win or a little more but at a cost that makes me wonder why more teams weren’t involved in the bidding.
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Atlanta’s outfield depth chart was nominally full, but the left-field options were all below average — Nick Markakis, now 35 and coming off a 0.8-WAR season when he didn’t hit lefties at all; Adam Duvall, all power and capable defense with a career .283 OBP against righties; and Austin Riley, who is a good enough third baseman that moving him to left was a bit of a waste of his abilities. None of these players was really good enough to be the everyday left fielder on a championship team, and the Braves were probably looking at about a win or so in total from whatever combination of those players got the left-field reps.
Ozuna’s peak season of 2017, when he was worth 5 WAR by FanGraphs and 6.1 WAR by Baseball-Reference, probably won’t be repeated, since it was fired by a .355 BABIP that was out of character for him. Around that season, however, he’s been consistently between 2 and 3 WAR, and he may have a little upside for 2020 if the shoulder he had surgically repaired after the 2018 season is fully healed. Ozuna hasn’t thrown well at all over the past two seasons, but he has shown above-average range in left field; he was worth half a win there from his range alone last year. At the plate, he has plus power but doesn’t walk enough, and he’s too vulnerable to sliders down and away, chasing them out of the zone often enough that he sees fewer pitches in the zone than the average player. He’ll play at 29 this year, so the odds are that’s not going to change, and he’ll be a low-OBP power hitter with above-average defense for a few more years before hitting his decline.
Atlanta has to worry about only one year with Ozuna, and perhaps his shoulder feels better enough that his throwing improves and his BABIP, which hit a career low in 2019 at .259, gets back to his career average (.323 before last season). Maybe it means he just feels good enough to swing more; he swung at 44.9 percent of pitches last year, the lowest rate of his career. For a team that tried to retain Josh Donaldson but lost him to the Twins, fearing the four-year commitment to a player who’d play at 32 in Year 1, this is better than just any old consolation prize. The Braves are better by a win or more this season, they retain flexibility for next season, and they still have a huge stable of valuable prospects if they do try to trade for another bat at third base.
Even at less than full strength, Ozuna was better last year than the left fielders for about half of the teams in baseball, including multiple contenders. The Cubs and Angels, for instance, would be better off with Ozuna. Perhaps no contender would have benefited more from signing Ozuna than Cleveland, although the Indians seem more likely to reduce payroll this winter than to spend $18 million on a player (and they may be loath to give up a draft pick). The Reds, who have been very aggressive since last winter, could have used the upgrade Ozuna provides in one of their outfield corners, too.
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For Atlanta to get Ozuna on a one-year deal with so many other contenders or would-be contenders still planning to run inferior left-field options out there seems like a tremendous deal — and a disappointing outcome for a player who deserved more years and more money. He could at least hope for a better result next winter if a completely healthy shoulder leads to a big year in 2020.
(Top photo: Scott Kane / Getty Images)
