In what’s been a snake-bitten season for the Atlanta Braves, the MLB Trade Deadline has felt different for Alex Anthopoulos and fans for some time now.
This team hasn’t been in a position to buy at the deadline for months, and the expectations quickly turned to the team selling off expiring pieces, chief among them being DH Marcell Ozuna.
The Big Bear being traded has all but been accepted as a formality by most — but with the deadline just hours away, that may not actually be the case after an update from one Braves insider.
Mark Bowman of MLB.com reported that the Braves are still trying to look for a trade partner with Ozuna and closer Raisel Iglesias. In the case of the DH, though, the insider first noted that his past legal issues could be giving some potential suitors hesitancy about making a trade for the rental DH.
More importantly, though, he also added that Ozuna’s inability to play the field and purely being locked into a DH role gives him “limited fits” around baseball.
Another way to say that would be that the Braves are having trouble finding an interested team who is willing to take on the baggage with Ozuna in addition to the fact that he limits the versatility of a lineup. For contenders who would be looking to bank on a bounce-back final two months from the current Braves slugger, that could end up leading to the disastrous outcome where Atlanta isn’t able to trade Ozuna and is either riding out the rest of the season with him mired away on a non-contending roster, or they could even waive him.
Braves facing Marcell Ozuna trade disaster as market appears nonexistent
Let’s be real, Ozuna isn’t nearly the attractive trade chip, DH or not, that you would’ve thought he’d be coming into the season.
After finishing fourth in National League MVP voting just one season ago with a .925 OPS and 39 home runs with 31 doubles, those numbers have dropped off dramatically. He’s posted just a .759 OPS with only 15 homers and 11 doubles through 98 games.
Furthermore, even the Braves have taken notice of that, benching Ozuna at times over the past couple of months to try and get Drake Baldwin and Sean Murphy both into the lineup by using one in Ozuna’s DH role.
It’s clear that he’s simply not been playing up to the level that Atlanta or anyone expected after posting a combined 79 home runs over the past two seasons, and posting an OPS over .900 in each of those years as well.
But at the trade deadline specifically, not trading Ozuna would be an absolute catastrophe for the Braves.
My stance has long been that a team in a situation like Atlanta’s this season has always been to maximize assets for the future.
This team clearly isn’t going anywhere in 2025, but the hope for the future remains once the rotation gets healthy again and with a core of Ronald Acuña Jr., Austin Riley and Matt Olson, among others.
Subsequently, not being able to trade Ozuna, while not entirely the Braves’ faults, would be the opposite of that.
At this point, they should be eager to take pennies on the dollar from any team that wants the DH and his expiring contract. Not finding a deal and either losing him for nothing this offseason or on waivers would only be salt in the wound for a fan base struggling through a lost season.
