Failing the Eye Test: Marcell Ozuna is a Terrible Outfielder...Or Maybe Not?
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| Pictured: Marcell Ozuna flailing at the ball to little avail. |
While scrolling through the MLB offseason rumor mill, I came across a forum post espousing how Marcell Ozuna's bat would benefit the Washington Nationals as protection in the lineup for Juan Soto and newcomer Josh Bell. It's not a hard argument to follow; Ozuna has obliterated the baseball at the plate over the past few years, turning in an outstanding .338 batting average with thirty-two extra base hits in a coronavirus shortened 2020 baseball season (good for an extra base hit every 8.3 at-bats). Any rational fanbase would want such a player hitting in the middle of their batting order, irregardless of the reality that small sample sizes rarely play out over the course of a full season. Nevertheless, Ozuna has a .477 career slugging percentage and averages about twenty-seven homeruns and ninety-seven RBIs over the course of a 162-game season so it isn't as if his production in 2020 was a fluke. Ozuna was a legitimate MVP contender in 2017, bashing nearly forty homeruns whilst maintaining a batting average of .312 over 159 games. In light of who he is as a hitter, it may come as a surprise then that the vast majority of fans polled on this possibility were vehemently against Ozuna's signing. Who wouldn't want production like that? Why wouldn't you want production like that?
Well, the reality is that the public perception of Marcell Ozuna is that he should be viewed as solely a DH at this point in his career. His ability with the glove, per the eye test, absolutely eradicates any advantage you have of gaining his bat in your lineup. It's a reputation that is built on the back of quite a few blunders that have cemented Ozuna into the minds of fans as a sort of fielding anti-wizard; his glove is his kryptonite and he loses all of his ability on the baseball diamond once he trots out to the outfield. It's an easy argument to make when you have visual evidence such as this and this to back you up. With the continuation of the DH in the National League still up in the air for the 2021 season and beyond, Ozuna most likely limited to signing with an American League team where he can keep his outfielder's mitt in his bag and focus solely on what he does best: crushing baseballs.
However, here's the rub of this situation: statistically, Marcell Ozuna is not that bad in the outfield. Even throwing out his 2017 Gold Glove season in which he was responsible for saving six runs for his team, Ozuna has posted two seasons over the course of his year where he actually cost his team runs in the outfield (per the Defensive Runs Saved sabermetric on Fangraphs.com). Once was in 2016 when he was still roaming centerfield for a Miami Marlins team before they realized he was more suited for a corner outfield position and once in 2020 when he only played appeared in twenty-one total games in the field. I would be moved to say that any player will probably be less successful when they're only appearing in the field one out of every three games. In-game live fielding situations will hone any player's skill; on the flipside, not having regular opportunities to field the ball in live-action situations will probably result in that player losing some of their effectiveness in the field.
By and large, Ozuna has been, if anything, a slightly above average fielder for the vast majority of his career. Perhaps veryyyyy slightly above average, but above average nonetheless. Per the Inside Edge fielding metric, Ozuna has about a 99.4% chance of making what was termed routine plays, a 69.3% chance of making likely plays, a 39.4% chance of making the 50-50 play, 5.4% chance of making an unlikely play, and even a 2.9% chance of making a remotely possible play. Is he great? No, certainly nobody will mistake Ozuna for Torii Hunter out there, but we often talk about Ozuna's fielding prowess like he's running around with his shoes on the wrong feet and with his glove on the wrong hand when he's roaming the outfield. Sabermetrics often are overused and sometimes need to be taken with a grain of salt. But we also need to be careful not to heap on negative attributions to a player's abilities based solely off of one terrible (or amazing) play. The proverb that even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then is particularly apt for this instance; Marcell Ozuna, despite his proclivity for Not-Top-10 plays, probably isn't as bad a fielder as we make him out to be and of course his bat would more than make up for whatever deficiencies he brings with his glove to any team that signs him.
Image courtesy of CBS.com.
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