Braves slugger Marcell Ozuna reportedly vetoed three trades deadline deals, per Braves insider

Braves slugger Marcell Ozuna reportedly vetoed three trades deadline deals, per Braves insider originally appeared on The Sporting News

The Atlanta Braves have had a very disappointing season — both from a team perspective and for some individuals. An offseason full of change is looming for the franchise, and it could very well start with a major shift at the manager position. Brian Snitker is in the final year of his contract and appears increasingly likely to retire.

“Because of that consistent recent success, Snit would normally be afforded a ‘mulligan’ year—even though going from the second-best preseason World Series odds to possibly the third-best odds of winning the draft lottery is a pretty serious mulligan,” Bleacher Report’s Kerry Miller wrote. “At 69, though, he’s already the oldest manager in the National League by a several-year margin and was likely to retire at the end of this season, which is the last one in his current contract.”

At the trade deadline, the Braves were expected to move several players. One of those was designated hitter Marcell Ozuna. However, he reportedly vetoed trade offers from three different teams.

“According to my source, they tried to trade him to 3 teams but he vetoed all of them,” Braves insider Ryan Cothran posted.

This is intriguing, but it’s possible those offers came from teams not in playoff contention. It’s also possible that Ozuna deferred trade discussions entirely to his agent, and no deal materialized.

“It’s possible that while Anthopoulos was discussing trades, he couldn’t agree on a deal that Ozuna’s agent could also sign off on. Just because Ozuna is leaving the deadline out of his hands doesn’t mean the 10-5 rights go out the window. He could have simply handed over those rights to his agent for the discussions,” SI’s Harrison Smajovits wrote.

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Ozuna has been a major offensive contributor since arriving in 2020, but this season has fallen short of expectations. He could have been competing for a championship elsewhere, but ultimately chose to remain in Atlanta. While the Braves are unlikely to bring him back this offseason, he passed up three separate opportunities to finish the season with a different team.