What can Atlanta Braves do about Marcell Ozuna after ice cold start?

Marcell Ozuna has been awful for the Atlanta Braves. In 63 plate appearances heading into Tuesday night’s game, Ozuna is batting .073 with a .190 OBP, which gets him a resounding minus-0.7 fWAR. These numbers are almost unheard of, and his fWAR is good enough to put him at 313/313 out of all batters with at least 60 plate appearances.

As of right now, Atlanta Braves fans are on their last straw with Marcell Ozuna.

Braves fans are at a loss for words trying to figure out why Snitker and Company keep leaving him in the lineup. At the beginning of the season, fans and journalists speculated that the Braves wanted Ozuna in the lineup in hopes he would play well and build back some of the value he had lost.

Now that almost the first month is over, it seems like that was a failure. Ozuna has been terrible, and between his trouble on the plate and off the field, he has no value, which makes the $48 million left on his contract unattractive. Alex Anthopolous is a front-office genius who rarely makes mistakes, but he missed the ball here.

This situation is a terrible case of “be careful what you wish for.” Braves fans were kicking and screaming to bring Ozuna back after the season he had after coming over from St. Louis in 2020. Looking back, it is inevitable that, in the case of Marcell Ozuna, the Braves wish they had gone in a different direction.

According to Jon Heyman, the Braves tried to jettison Ozuna and failed.

“The Braves tried to reacquire World Series MVP Jorge Soler twice — once at the deadline (when they asked the Marlins to pay some of his $13M salary) and once over the winter. The Marlins declined one trade suggestion that would have sent Marcell Ozuna back to Miami.”

It’s hard to believe that Big Bear will turn anything around anytime soon, but something must change. If not him, then the Braves coaching staff will need to get him out of the lineup and figure out what to do with him.

The Braves have enough players on the IL to start a separate team with that. It makes sense why Ozuna is on the 26-man, but it does seem, to most followers, that it doesn’t seem to do anyone any good having an automatic out whenever he gets to the plate.

It is no secret the Braves are trying to unload Ozuna, but it just is not that easy. In the first season of Ozuna’s new contract, he wascharged with domestic violence. In his second year, he was arrested for a DUI. On top of a terrible fWAR and his hefty contract, these incidents make him almost untouchable.