For those of you still angry about Alex Anthopoulos’ decision to sign Josh Donaldson with the Twins, maybe it’s time to focus your madness on something else, huh? That particular choice, or at least the one-year, $ 18 million deal to Marcell Ozuna, is starting to look like a pure genius move.
Sure, Donaldson was amazing for the Braves in 2019, but so far this season he has played just seven games for Minnesota and is currently at IL with an injured calf. Meanwhile, the Braves’ new clean-up shooter, Ozuna, kills it, and – after a two-homer game on Friday – leads the team with seven home runs. Let’s compare we will:
Stats of 2019
- Donaldson – 7 G, .182 AVG, 1 HR, 2 RBI
- Ozuna – 26 G, .280 AVG, 7 HR, 17 RBI
Contrary to what seems to be a prospect with the Marlins in 2017 – when he posted a 5-WAR season, thanks to a .312 AVG and career-best 37 home points – for the most part Ozuna has ruled in as a 2- 3 WAR player in the major. Primarily because of his lack of defense. He always had to hit very hard to keep his WAR total up, and that should continue in 2020 as well, as Ozuna’s Def WAR was at -4.1 in Friday’s game against the Phillies. If the boy himself was half the defender he was five or six seasons ago, he would probably be an annual MVP candidate at this point, but it seems Ozuna’s days are flashing the glove over.
However, Ozuna’s outfield shortages have been forgiven in the last several seasons, thanks to an impressive boss ball profile, marked by one of the game’s most powerful swings. Since the start of the 2018 season, Ozuna ranks 12th in the major in Statcast’s HardHit% (46.4%) – ahead of guys like Mike Trout, Bryce Harper and Anthony Rendon. And in 2020, his profile has continued to improve as he has increased his Hard Hit% to 50.8% so far, his Launch Angle from 13.5 to 16.3 degrees and his Barrel% improved from 11.8% to 12.3% – all indicators of a hot-hitting slugger.
And for a player who absolutely loves to mash fastballs (career .316 AVG with 86 HR), Ozuna has somehow found a way to improve against the heater this season, managing a .348 AVG against the field entering Friday’s game. Seven of his 16 hits versus fastball have been extra-base hits, which entered the matchup with Philadelphia on Friday, giving him a strong .630 SLG%.
But it is against his work off-speed pitches this season that seem to make a difference for Ozuna.
For his career, the 29-year-old has almost always struggled to hit the off-speed game (career 104 wRC + vs. switch), although Ozuna has made some decent strides since early 2019, placing a 129 wRC + last week , to go with a 191 wRC + against the supply so far in 2020. Indeed, despite seeing such a small sample of off-speed pitches so far this season (only 16.7% of pitches seen ), Ozuna has had the most success against that particular pitch, hitting at .357 and hitting .786. Both his average throw speed (101.5 mph) and xWOBA (.469) are also his best rates when comparing Ozuna’s performances against the three pitch groups (fastballs, ball breaking and off-speed), according to Baseball Savant.
And those rates against fastball will only increase if stat sites are updated on Saturday, seeing the two big Ozuna homers from Friday come up against heaters.
His first long ball was a 94 mph fastball at the top of the zone – thrown by starter Aaron Nola – to give the Braves back-to-back homers in the 3rd inning. Ozuna crushed it 430 feet to dead center …
Splash to splash!#ForTheA pic.twitter.com/cPcd3d2IUs
– Atlanta Braves (@Braves) August 22, 2020
Home run no. 2 was the game’s longest hit – a 438-foot drive off reliever Cole Irvin in the 5th inning. Once again the Phillies tried to hit Ozuna in the zone with a heater of 94 mph, but he jumped over there …
This is Marcell Ozuna’s second home run of the night, but it’s the first to land on the moon.#ForTheA pic.twitter.com/6s4qdWW1Et
– Atlanta Braves (@Braves) August 22, 2020
That all-in-all, Friday night’s performance by Ozuna was mostly just an illustration of what he’s been doing all season: hitting fastballs really hard and really far – a trademark of his for several years now. That, along with his newfound success against off-speed pitches, have made the 2020 campaign a resounding success for the veteran outfielder.
Maybe JD let the Braves bite one day, and maybe it’s already related to the team’s production on third base. But what replaces Donaldson’s contributions to the cleaning scene in the lineup … well, I think Ozuna worked just fine. It will be interesting to see if he goes through with it.
