Marcell Ozuna’s underlying stats suggest Pirates fans shouldn’t panic yet

Marcell Ozuna was supposed to be the finishing touch to bring the Pittsburgh Pirates' offense over the top. The veteran slugger was supposed to bring the thunder, but his addition to the roster came with some risks. His inability to slot in anywhere other than DH made an already questionable Pirates' defense even worse, and as a result, he was a big part of the calculated gamble that the offense could overcome those shortcomings in the field.

The returns from the lineup have been a mixed bag overall, but Ozuna has been particularly brutal. Through 10 games, the 35-year-old is slashing an impotent .051/.159/.051 with no homers. To his credit, he's taken the criticism (and the boos) on the chin, taking full responsibility for his atrocious start.

Making things worse is the fact that Pirates legend Andrew McCutchen has shone in the early going, suggesting that perhaps Pittsburgh made the wrong choice when they unceremoniously cast the former face of the franchise aside.

The inclination might be to panic, but as Pirates insider Jason Mackey points out, the underlying data suggests that Ozuna will rebound and progress back up to the mean.

Underlying data suggests Marcell Ozuna will improve, but the Pirates are wondering to what extent

Mackey compared Ozuna's metrics, such as bat speed, chase rate, and whiff rate in 2026 to what he averaged from 2023 to 2025. This year's marks are nearly identical to the blended average from that three-year stretch, but the production from Ozuna varied drastically from 2023 and 2024 to 2025.

There are a couple of interesting takeaways from the data. The first has to do with bat speed. While it's true that Ozuna's average bat speed from the previous three years is pretty much equal to what he's able to do now, it's actually been on a bit of a decline, falling from about two miles per hour since 2023. A roughly 73 mph average is certainly enough to do damage, but it's not quite as potent as his peak.

The second takeaway, which is sort of counterintuitive, is that Ozuna was more productive when he whiffed and chased more frequently. His 2025 plate discipline numbers are a good deal better than the previous two years, though that was his worst season overall. This year's results haven't been as good as 2025, but they're still a hair better than 2023 and certainly 2024.

The biggest hindrance to Ozuna's production has been the type of contact he's making. From 2023 through 2025, he hit flyballs at about a 40% rate. This year, that rate has zoomed up to 57.1%, with an 18.8% rate of popups in the infield, versus an 8.9% rate for his career. Alongside that, he's only pulled the ball 21.4% of the time, versus a 42% rate for his career.

That would suggest that he's late on pitches and therefore not making solid contact, though he still has more than enough bat speed to get around on even the highest-velocity offerings. Timing, rather than an erosion of skill, would then be the primary issue and is something that he should be able to work out.

Analytically, it's pretty clear that Ozuna will bounce back, but the real question is how high he'll ascend. Will he be the roughly .900 OPS guy that he was in 2023 and 2024? Will he be the .750-ish OPS hitter, who is just slightly above average? Does he land somewhere in between? We'll need a larger sample to answer those questions, but rest assured that, to some degree, Ozuna will be a positive offensive contributor in 2026.

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