Atlanta Braves attempted to replace Marcell Ozuna at the deadline

A curious discussion was had yesterday between front office representative of the Atlanta Braves and Miami Marlins.

If you’ve ever wondered the kind of lengths that General Managers might go to when trying to resolve roster problems, then this scenario the Atlanta Braves were cooking up might provide you with some new insight.

Here’s the report, as chronicled by Barry Jackson and Craig Mish in the Miami Herald:

"The Marlins discussed numerous proposals with teams, and Miami had the opportunity to deal outfielder Avisail Garcia, who has been a disappointment. But it likely would have required the Marlins to take substantial money back.The Marlins and Braves had a discussion involving Garcia and former Marlins outfielder Marcell Ozuna, but it never reached the point of either side proposing a trade.…Ozuna’s defense has declined and he’s now considered primarily a designated hitter. The Marlins already have enough of those.Garcia then left Tuesday’s game with a hamstring injury."

Ozuna, for his part, homered in the 13-1 victory over Philadelphia on Tuesday night, his 19th shot of the season.

As Jackson and Mish suggest, the talks didn’t get very far, but the concept is what’s still worthy of discussion, particularly since I believe there was more to this than just money.

Those Albatross Contracts

Garcia is 31 and is on the first year of a 4-year contract that will pay him $53 million in total, counting an inevitable $5 million buyout of his 2026 option.  Thus after this season, he’s due $41 million more.

To say that he’s been terrible for Miami is a substantial understatement:  his numbers from 2021 have declined dramatically from an OPS of .820 with 29 homers (Milwaukee) to just 7 home runs and a .591 OPS with the Marlins.

The 31½-year-old Ozuna, on the other hand, hasn’t been a lot better, but he’s actually produced better than his 2021 campaign with a .688 OPS vs. a pedestrian .645 in 2021… an injury-and-legalities-shortened year at that.

Ozuna’s contract continues for 2 more seasons after this, and he’s due $37 million more for those years – again, counting the $1 million buyout of his own option year.

Explanation?

So why would the Braves have even been entertaining such a swap of these bad contracts… particularly when the pain of having Garcia would linger for an additional year?  There are a couple of reasons:

• Yesterday’s injury to Garcia notwithstanding, he actually still plays some defense.  Ozuna does so at this point only in case of emergency… or at least that should be the case.  Garcia has logged 71 games’ worth of innings in right field for the Marlins.
• The suspicion/speculation here is that the Braves weren’t so much interested in Garcia as they were more focused on getting another relief pitcher, perhaps Anthony Bass, who ended up going to the Blue Jays.  That would explain why they would be willing to take the shorter straw that Garcia’s contract would have left them holding.

Still, while bad contract swaps seldom result in great outcomes, it’s notable that Atlanta was engaging in such exercises (and this likely wasn’t the only one) to rid themselves of Ozuna.

Part of that could be related to Ozuna himself, but even beyond that, production from both the left field and designated hitter positions has been abysmal this year.

The Atlanta Braves rank last in the majors with -2.3 bWAR in production from all of their left fielders combined.  So whether we’re talking about Ozuna, Adam Duvall, or Eddie Rosario, things have not been good.

At the DH slot, things are only slightly better, and that “improvement” had nothing to do with Ozuna.

The Braves rank 28th in the sport at -1.4 for their DH’s.  That uptick can be chalked up to William Contreras and the early success he enjoyed (which has now been dialed back a bit).

Ozuna overall has been “worth” -0.6 bWAR for the year.

Ultimately, of course, the Braves went with a cheap-to-get option in Robbie Grossman, who should be a viable platoon-mate for Rosario, while Ozuna will remain as the chief DH option for the team.

While the team was unable to resolve all of their outfield matchup issues at the trade deadline, this topic will be something to watch for in the coming off-season.

Since he’s still with us. let’s just hope Ozuna can figure out his offensive funk soon… the Braves really need him and Ronald Acuna to get themselves back on track.