I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

– Ozymandias, Percy Shelley

Ozzie Albies’ 2024 season wasn’t quite that bad, but by most other standards it was an awfully tough year. Like Ronald Acuña, for the second time in three years he had a bad leg injury that severely limited his playing time and sapped his effectiveness while he was on the field. He won’t turn 28 until the new year – the Braves signed him as a 16-year-old free agent back in 2013 – but while his magnificent 2023 made it seem like his ceiling was yet to be reached, his disappointing 2024 leaves one to wonder how many miles his legs have left to run, after 11 years in the organization.

The thing about Ozzie is: he’s streaky and runs incredibly hot and cold. So it’s easy to accentuate the negative. The above paragraph, that’s the downside. I should note that despite his cratering offense and bad legs, he remained a nearly league-average hitter and fielder; overall, he was only a slightly below-average player while on the field. His natural baseline is high enough that a bad year just drops him to a bit below par.

(Just for comparison: Ozzie was worth about three wins less in 2024 than he had been in 2023, and that made him slightly below average. Orlando Arcia was worth about 1.5 wins less in 2024 than in 2023, and it meant he was one of the worst starting players in baseball. Context is everything.)

So, Ozzie is consistently inconsistent, which means that when evaluating him you kind of just need to take the good with the bad and know that, up to now, the former has always wound up outweighing the latter.

As I wrote in his player review a year ago:

Ozzie’s plate approach may be inconsistent from at bat to at bat. But his results are extraordinarily consistent from year to year. If his defense bounces back to normal and he manages to continue to improve offensively, he could be a 6-win player.

Then again, as I wrote in my Where Do We Go From Here on the infield a month ago…

Albies… well, I think we’ve all been worried about him for a little while now. In the player review for him that I wrote back in January, I noted his serious defensive dropoff, as his range dipped severely following his broken foot injury in 2022. While his range rebounded somewhat, his arm strength remains among the worst in the majors; also worryingly, his already-low average exit velocity, barrel rate, and hard-hit rate all fell further, as did his sprint speed. Offensively, his year was actually quite similar to his injury-plagued 2022 campaign. He won’t turn 28 until January, but he’s suffered a lot of wear and tear. His club options are still so reasonably priced that they are likely to be picked up, but he now has serious question marks both offensively and defensively, and this offseason may be his most challenging since his rookie season.

One small upside of his 2024 season was his willingness to consider permanently switching to hitting right-handed. The early returns, albeit in a tiny sample size, look favorable.

For his career, he has a .333/.360/.567 (.927 OPS) triple slash batting righty, and a .247/.309/.434 (.743 OPS) triple slash batting lefty. Last year, as a lefty he hit just .225/.294/.351 (.645 OPS); even when he batted righty against RHP, he hit .226/.273/.452 (.724 OPS), nearly 80 points better, and pretty similar to his career numbers batting lefty against righties.

From his work last year, it’s difficult to make an argument that he should bring back his lefty swing, especially when he has so much work to do to rebuild his leg strength and, hopefully, regain some of his former defensive prowess.

For what it’s worth, Steamer and the Fangraphs Depth Charts predict a sizeable bounceback for him next year, to about 3.5 WAR and an offensive performance right at his career norms (albeit below his 2019 and 2023 high-water marks). ZiPS is only slightly less optimistic, predicting a 2.5 WAR performance – not up to his usual standard but still highly adequate.

Still, his health remains a key question. His speed and defensive range have both fallen in recent years, the latter quite precipitously. His walk rate has not risen, despite all Ron Washington’s exhortations. And, in fact, last year he posted his worst-ever power numbers, not what you’d expect from a 27-year-old. It all comes down to the same question as we’ll be asking about Ronald: when will he get his legs back under him, and how much strength, speed, and flexibility will he have then?

The 2025 season is the last guaranteed year on his contract, but barring disaster his club options in 2026 and 2027 are almost certain to be picked up, and it’s not inconceivable that Alex Anthopoulos would consider buying out those options and signing him to a longer-term extension.

He’s had a brilliant career so far. If he could improve his plate discipline and shore up his defense, his best days could yet be ahead of him.

Hopefully.