The Miami Marlins remain a trainwreck. Expectations are that the club will trade talented 25-year old center fielder Marcell Ozuna this weekend…simply because owner Jeffrey Loria has a problem with him for whatever reason.
Multiple teams have approached the #Marlins about Marcell Ozuna. They're being told Miami wants a young starter in return.
— Jerry Crasnick (@jcrasnick) November 20, 2015
"I'd be surprised if they keep him,'' one exec said of Ozuna. "Loria clearly can't stand the guy and everybody knows it." #Marlins
— Jerry Crasnick (@jcrasnick) November 20, 2015
Ozuna just turned 25 earlier this month, and has already played 346 games in the majors. Over his three seasons with the Marlins, Ozuna has hit .265/.311/.416 with 36 homers and largely above average defense, a skillset that is more than acceptable from a center fielder.
But for whatever reason, the Marlins developed some issues with him this year. Still without a long-term plan to contention, the Marlins played games with Ozuna’s service time, successfully manipulating his time in the majors this season to deprive him of a fourth year of arbitration. Ozuna compared his 33 games in AAA to a jail stint, and his agent Scott Boras took shots at the team regarding Jose Fernandez, citing their treatment of Ozuna in his rant.
Ozuna is the type of player the Marlins should be building around, along with Christian Yelich in left field and Giancarlo Stanton in right field. After Ozuna got called back up from AAA in mid-August, he hit .278/.320/.469 with six homers – gee, it’s almost like those first three months in which he struggled were just a blip on the radar and not a sign of things to come!
Plenty of teams *should* be interested in Ozuna, but the Marlins won’t even need to look outside of their division for a possible fit – if its young starting pitching that Miami is looking for, the Atlanta Braves have acquired a stockpile of young pitchers that would make most clubs in the league blush. Manny Banuelos? Tyrell Jenkins? Williams Perez? Go ahead, take one – Atlanta could certain use a franchise outfielder considering that Michael Bourn, Nick Markakis, and Nick Swisher were all logging time in the outfield in the second half, and that Cameron Maybin seems destined to be traded this winter.
