Marcell Ozuna had the only great position player year in 2024. I’m pretty sure that even in Marcell Ozuna’s family (maybe especially in his family) no one expected this. His 4.3 oWAR was the second highest of his career. He never took a day off, and his 688 plate appearances was the highest of his career. Essentially, all of his number were an eyelash short of his best full offensive season (I don’t know what to do about his excellent 2020) in 2017, his last year in Miami before the Cardinals stole him away. He even stole a base. He finished 15th in the MVP race in 2017; he finished 4th this year.
While the season was strong, it had a down side at the end. While he had easily the highest walk total of his career, he also struck out considerably more than he had heretofore – an almost Adam Dunn-esque 170 Ks. (That’s really unfair: Adam Dunn reached the 170 K level 8 times.). This landed him tied for 10th in franchise history, tied with Matt Olson’s 2022 and 2024 and just behind Justin Upton’s 2014 and Dan Uggla;s 2013. Today’s trivia question: who holds the record for strikeouts in a season in franchise history with 188? The answer surprised me.
Ozuna had the 7th highest strikeout total in baseball history of any player hitting .300 or more for the season. That said, the list of players in the top ten in this category is a really interesting list. There are three recent Braves seasons in the top 10. I have no idea what that means.
It was my impression that Ozuna tired badly in September, and September was indeed his worst month by a fair margin. But even in September he had an OPS+ of 121 – by September he had declined from immortal to good.
On the personal side, Ozuna seems to have settled down his personal life (or at least learned to keep it under wraps.) He is extremely popular with his teammates and just because I think the whole Snitbear thing was stupid, I am not anyone you would consult if you wanted to know how to market the Braves.
He just turned 34, and there are plenty of DHs who hit well after that age. Edgar Martinez had 5 seasons of 4+ WAR after he turned 34. David Ortiz did it 3 times and Nelson Cruz did it twice. You just have to remember that even if everyone else is hurt, you cannot put him in the field – you’d be better off leaving the position empty. He has two Gold Gloves, he will never earn another. The $16 million the Braves will pay him this year was a no-brainer. It did mean that there was no way we could keep Jorge Soler, a sort of poor man’s Ozuna, but I don’t think there’s anyone all that troubled by that. Plus, if we want Soler back, we can probably get him for nothing in July, like we’ve done twice before.
Teams (including the Braves) often talk about how great it is to trade for guys who still have a couple of years of team control. The Cardinals traded for Ozuna from Miami in 2017 and gave up Sandy Alcantara and Zac Gallen and Magneuris Sierra and Daniel Castano. Ozuna disappointed them and they cut him loose in free agency. This just shows you should might be giving up a lot for someone who might disappoint you, even if their salary under team control. I don’t know why Ozuna didn’t work out in St. Louis, but keeping Sandy Alcantara and Zac Gallen might have helped the Cardinals a lot.
A final editorial comment on the personal stuff. People are really, really quick to judge other human beings. I get the impulse, and the notion that people can get millions of dollars to play a kid’s game and not show their gratitutde by being an exemplary human being will be so troubling to some to overshadow performance. And look — if Marcell Ozuna was the utter unrepentant dick that Trevor Bauer apparently is, there are no doubt limits on acceptable behavior. But Marcell Ozuna seems to have atoned, and in this business, seems is the best you can get. It would have been a massive mistake for the Braves to have cut Ozuna loose, as so many of you were insisting on. You all might not have been wrong — Ozuna might have never recovered his swing and he could have gotten into even more trouble. But you were guessing. AA was investigating, and assessing, and deciding. He was right.
Overall, there is no reason to think Ozuna will stop hitting in 2025. And if he has an equally good 2025, he will start signing Nelson Cruz-esque one-year contracts until he can’t walk. For better or worse, as long as he hits, the Braves won’t be able to rest anyone by DHing them. That’s a good problem to have.
I would’ve been happy paying Fried 220 over 8, pretty frustrating to lose him over that.
Pretty interesting. If you project Fried to be worth 3 WAR per year for those 8 years, then he’s getting paid about $9M per WAR, which is not crazy.
With that said, I don’t know if I would project him to give you those 24 total WAR. But what’s wild is that he’s averaged 26.2 starts per year over the last 5 seasons. So many of us act like he’s made of glass but it’s simply not true. There’s just something about Fried’s gangly appearance that makes you think that he just can’t hold up for an entire career, but the data says he’s mostly stayed on the field.
The dollar / year value is reasonable. Eight years is a long time for a pitcher already 30. Pity we couldn’t extend him earlier like Riley, Acuna etc. I wish him well, but not the Yankees.
We could’ve extended him. While dollar amounts didn’t leak with Fried like they did with Dansby and Freddie, we know that we could’ve retained Dansby for $120MM/6 and Freddie for something like $140MM/6 (I forget the exact numbers). AA is so smart that he will not pay slightly below market to retain his own players. What he will do is make expensive trades for their worse replacements and pay those players whatever number he had in his head. I suspect Fried would’ve extended for something like $175MM/7, but once he got to free agency, he was obviously going to top that. Now it’s time to make an expensive trade for Crochet and extend him for like $180MM/8.
Stampton, can you link me to where Dansby wanted 6YR/$120M? I haven’t seen that. I don’t really see him being willing to accept that.
I can’t find that particular report but this one says he wanted $140 million (possibly over 7, though)
https://fansided.com/2022/12/04/braves-first-offer-dansby-swanson-revealed/
Stampton, the link you sent includes Nightengale speculating (not even confirming) that Dansby wanted $140M, which is still higher than the $120M you said. So I really don’t buy this narrative that AA has the opportunity to lock these people up below market value and he’s simply choosing not. And considering the extensions to the other guys, it’s pretty clear that if AA can do this, he will do this.
These guys went to FA and got paid. Good for them. This is not an indictment on AA.
Rob, I was going from memory from 3 years ago. It certainly confers psychic benefits to believe the guys we have in charge are doing the best anyone could do and are not making any glaring mistakes. But the idea we had no chance to retain Freeman, Fried, and Swanson doesn’t jibe with the news stories which all painted the same picture. We lowballed all 3 (if we even made an offer–I’m not sure on Fried), and wouldn’t budge. It is entirely possible that management said to AA “look, you’re not going to pay Dansby Swanson a dime over $17MM per” and such, but it’s unlikely. AA has a budget and he has an idea about the best way to build a roster within that. I just disagree.
Of the three that left, Freeman hurts the most even though we have replaced him pretty effectively with Olson. I feel we were very close to resigning him that offseason and he clearly would’ve been happy to play here again. With Fried I felt it was a done deal that he’d be leaving. Not really trying to resign Dansby feels like a cold-hearted business decision, regardless of what numbers Dansby’s team would’ve accepted. I also feel if a player really wants to stay, they’d have found a way to get a deal / extension done prior to reaching free agency.
Any thoughts on the two players we’ve selected in the Rule 5 draft? Looks like a SS back-up and a bullpen arm?
Eovaldi back to the Rangers. I’m starting to get annoyed.
At some point, AA has to spend more than his comfort level allows. You cannot achieve surplus value on every deal and that ESPECIALLY shouldn’t be as important when you’ve signed most of your starters to below-market deals.
At some point the window is going to close. It may be closing now. Acuña’s knees may never be the same and Strider may never be good again. The Dodgers and Mets have unlimited money. Don’t go into the season having to rely on another one year Charlie Morton deal and more Jarred Kelenic. Morton can no longer be trusted to start a playoff game and Kelenic is never going to be a good hitter. Ever.
When Eovaldi is making $25M, Chris Sale is making $22M, and Reynaldo Lopez is making $8M, I don’t know if this is the perfect time to suggest that the GM doesn’t know what he’s doing.
Well said, Rob
By the way, here’s Mac’s piece comparing Dave Parker and Dale Murphy.
If you had concealed Mac’s name and said Bill James wrote that, I would have believed it.
I mean that as a compliment.
With this market, I’d imagine we’re priced out of Buehler’s going rate. Which would be ridiculous, given he’s coming off a -1.3 WAR season (bref). It might have to be Morton again (if he wants to pitch) or a trade. I don’t think anyone predicted we’d get Sale.
I also find it a bit baffling that we essentially traded Soler for nothing. I thought we could’ve got at least one usable arm in return.
Regarding Ozuna, it’s good to hear an opinion that he likely won’t regress at the plate. It was pretty grim watching much of the rest of the lineup flailing helplessly this year.
I didn’t really discuss the issue of regression, and this piece would have been a good place to do it. But I do think that something seems to have clicked for Ozuna in early 2023 and he’s now got a pretty established level over almost two years. Baseball is still a constant battle of adjustments, though, and it is definitely true that the expectation for Ozuna is lower for 2025 than 2024 simply because the possible changes have more downsides than upsides — Ozuna can clearly forget how to hit (or be stymied by some adjustment) and have a season that is 30 percent worse than 2023 but it is inconceivable that he suddenly becomes Ohtani+ and has a season that is 30 percent better. That said, a 4 oWAR season is (modest) regression, but still really good.
Why do we blame AA for not spending? It’s not his money. Do we know for sure the bank is open, and he just won’t use it?
Because he does spend money. A major reason we were not very competitive last was that money spent on Shawn Murphy, Matt Olson, Charlie Morton, and Pierce Johnson wasn’t money well spent. AA clearly has a philosophy that sustained success as a non-NY/LA team requires locking in players to below market deals. It certainly does help to have Acuna for so little. But the idea you can just replace Freddie, Dansby, and Max without decimating your farm and being underwhelmed with their replacements, and spending almost as much is the issue.
Wait, we weren’t competitive last year? We made the playoffs despite injuries to most of our lineup. You realize that the Yankees spend all the money in the world and have exactly as many World Series wins in the last 10 years as us, right?
There’s a lot of gripes about this team, but you’re clearly pissed that the Yankees — who haven’t won anything since Obama was in the White House — just paid a pitcher $26M per through age 38 out of desperation. As a fan, is that what you want?
“you’re clearly pissed that the Yankees — who haven’t won anything since Obama was in the White House — just paid a pitcher $26M per through age 38 out of desperation. As a fan, is that what you want?”
Didn’t say anything like that. No, we should not try to outbid the Yankees for free agent pitching. If we’d made an earnest effort to extend Fried, you would’ve seen reports about it. You can assume we did, and it just wasn’t reported, but again, it’s this Polyannaish view on AA where his genius cannot be questioned. And if something looks questionable, well surely there is an explanation that we just don’t know about. People are still defending the Contreras for Murphy trade for crying out loud. It’s like if someone criticizes your GM you feel like you have to come out swinging.
It’s pretty clear that he does not believe we can win within our budget paying a starting pitcher big money, so he doesn’t. And we have multiple first round playoff flops in which we had a dumpster fire on the mound for at least one start.
The $27.25M AAV for Fried is totally reasonable. The years are something AA would never touch. I bet you he would have done 5/$136 for Fried at that AAV, but until age 39? No chance. This doesn’t really bother me much because it’s been a foregone conclusion for at least two years.
In this market, Buehler is probably going to get a guaranteed second year, so that probably puts us out.
I’m not sure I suggested he doesn’t know what he’s doing or that he doesn’t “spend money.” In fairness to AA, he might have offered a similar deal to Eovaldi, and he just prefers Texas, but I doubt it.
AA is an excellent talent evaluator and it seems like he won’t overpay — either in dollars, years or prospects — for pretty much anyone. We aren’t privy to all the details, but we’ve seen details leak on a few occasions that confirm this philosophy, and he’s said publicly they never want dead money on the books.
I stand by my original point. We have a lot of guys — Sale and Lopez included — making less than their market value and it really shouldn’t be a big deal to overpay for a few players at positions of need.
But why overpay if you don’t need to? I’m really missing the key point. When guys all over the roster have better value, why not just keep doing it? I don’t need Max Fried in a Braves uniform. I just want to win.
Everyone wants to win. I’m not sure if overpaying is what anyone is advocating for. What I think Kip means here is that AA won’t “overpay” based on whatever number he decides someone is worth. That number may be well below market value. The problem is that star baseball players are scarce, and while you can pat yourself on the back for not giving in to Freddie Freeman, you replaced him with someone worse for not much less money and gutted your farm system to do it. Was it better to “overpay” if that’s what you want to call it? Considering the alternate universe we find ourselves in, yes. Was it better to overpay to extend Fried 2 years ago or to end up in our precarious pitching situation? Aces are scarce. We are a lot closer to being .500 this season than perhaps you realize.
Not that we really had the prospect load to part with, but Crochet is off the board.
I guess the question is how do we replace Max’s production? I dont want eovaldi at 25 million, but i really dont want Morton at 15 either.
I haven’t seen the answer to the trivia question yet, so I’ll take a stab: Andruw Jones?
I cheated on the trivia question by looking it up. I won’t state what I discovered, but I will say I was quite surprised.
The answer is here: https://stathead.com/tiny/sBxt0
You were not wrong, I wouldn’t have guessed that.
An overpay for Alex is offering multiple years to a free agent starting pitcher. He does not historically do that. You have to overpay because that’s the reality of the market now. Nearly every starting pitcher has signed for more than what was originally projected.
I’m simply arguing the risk tolerance should be lowered when we’re in the middle of a World Series run. Forget Fried or Burnes, I’d take Michael Wacha or Seth Lugo, both of whom were available last year on pretty short, reasonable deals. We had to start AJSS in a playoff game and Elder in one the year before. Enough.
The reason you can’t keep successfully signing players to below-market deals is because it’s actually pretty hard. The pool of rebound players is also inherently smaller. Chris Sale was only available because of his injury history and most teams didn’t see Lopez as a starter anymore. That’s a testament to the front office but that also seems hard to replicate. It’s also not without risk and I’ll remind everyone of the Cole Hamel’s deal and how horribly that worked out. There is such a thing as a bad one-year deal.
Great conversation at the Journal today (and yesterday). In case you guys missed it, AA was a finalist in the Garret Crochet trade but Red Sox outbid them. IMO, that’s going to be AA’s MO again this offseason. He’ll find a LH SP on the trade market, or a cheap “prove it” deal somewhere.
Also, newly acquired Rule 5 Draft pick Anderson Pilar sure does look like a Joe Jimenez clone.
It looks like Pilar dropped his arm angle in winter ball and is throwing a little harder. Could be a really nice pickup.
Stampton articulates my point better than I could.
And I say all this as someone who really admires AA. He’s top five in the sport and way better than Schuerholz on his best day.