Pirates’ $12 million offseason mistake is already becoming impossible to defend

The Pirates’ offseason bet on Marcell Ozuna was never supposed to require this much explaining by May. Pittsburgh gave him $12 million because the lineup needed immediate damage, not another long runway for another aging bat to find itself. The whole point was to add power to a thin offense and give opposing pitchers one more reason to stop cruising through the lineup.

One month in, the only uncomfortable part is watching the Pirates try to keep defending it. 

Ozuna’s start has been brutal. We’re talking about a .162 average, a .466 OPS, two home runs, eight RBI and a negative bWAR entering May, which is about as loud as an early-season red flag can get. The Pirates committed $12 million to Ozuna on a one-year deal, at the time that the contract included a $16 million mutual option for 2027 with a $1.5 million buyout.  

For the Pirates, that’s real money. And when that money goes to a 35-year-old DH who is not hitting, running, defending, or offering positional flexibility, the leash cannot be endless just because the front office doesn’t want to admit the obvious.

Marcell Ozuna is making the Pirates’ offseason power fix look painfully misguided

The frustrating part is that the logic was not completely ridiculous in February. Pittsburgh needed pop. When Ozuna agreed to the deal, the Pirates ranked last in MLB with only 117 home runs last season, so the idea of adding a veteran hitter with a long power track record made plenty of sense on paper. Ozuna was coming off a down 2025 with Atlanta, but he still hit 21 home runs, and the Pirates were clearly betting there was enough left in the bat to raise the floor of the lineup.  

But that’s the problem with the logic. Eventually, games show up and start bullying the theory. Right now, Ozuna is not stabilizing anything. He’s dragging down the one lineup spot that is supposed to be the easiest place to chase offense. The DH role exists so teams can hide a glove and keep a dangerous bat in the lineup. The Pirates are currently hiding a problem there instead.

This is no longer a rebuilding team casually eating at-bats just to see what happens. The Pirates have enough interesting pieces that every wasted lineup spot feels more annoying than it would have two years ago. You cannot talk yourself into a more serious era of Pirates baseball and then keep handing prime at-bats to a designated hitter producing like a pitcher who found a bat in the lost-and-found bin.

That sounds harsh, but we are talking about a veteran DH whose whole job is to hit baseballs hard enough to justify everything else he doesn’t provide. If that part disappears, the argument disappears with it.

If Pittsburgh keeps running him out there because of the contract, that’s not patience. It’s stubbornness. The money is already spent. The only question now is whether the Pirates are going to compound the mistake by letting it cost them more games.

Ozuna was supposed to make the Pirates feel more dangerous. Instead, he has become the easiest part of the lineup to question.

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