Pirates' stubborn Marcell Ozuna gamble has reached its breaking point

The Pittsburgh Pirates do not have a Marcell Ozuna problem anymore. They have a decision-making problem.

Ozuna is not slumping his way through a rough week. He's not one well-timed three-hit game away from making the numbers look respectable. He's not being held out of the lineup because of some nagging injury that explains away everything that has gone wrong. He's simply unplayable.

That became impossible to ignore during the Pirates’ 11-2 loss to the Athletics on Monday, when Ozuna spent another full game doing nothing but watching from the dugout. It marked the fourth straight game in which he didn't participate at all, even as a pinch hitter. It was the 11th time in 16 games that he failed to get into a game.

The Pirates simply don't trust him to take at-bats anymore. And why would they? He's hitting .193 with a .573 OPS, the fourth-lowest mark in Major League Baseball. His bat speed has sunk to a career-low 73.4 mph. He is barreling the ball on just 8.1% of his swings, less than half as often as he was two years ago with the Atlanta Braves. He's whiffing on 44.7% of the offspeed pitches he sees, not to mention 46.2% of of breaking balls.

There's no longer any mystery here. Opponents don't have to challenge Ozuna. They can just spin him into the ground and wait for him to swing through it. His reputation might still belong to the player who once wrecked mistakes and changed games with one swing, but his current production belongs nowhere near a team trying to win.

The only thing keeping Ozuna on the roster is the same thing that has kept too many bad Pirates decisions alive over the years: money already spent.

Ozuna is making $12 million this season. That matters only because the Pirates have chosen to let it matter. The money is gone whether he starts, sits, pinch-hits or gets designated for assignment. There's no refund coming, and there's no way to salvage the investment by forcing a roster spot to remain occupied by a player the manager no longer trusts enough to use.

That is the entire point of a sunk cost. The mistake has already happened. The only choice left is whether to compound it. Right now, the Pirates are compounding the heck out of it.

Marcell Ozuna has become dead weight on a Pirates roster that can no longer afford it

If Ozuna can't get into four straight games, and if he can't appear in 11 of 16, then the Pirates have already admitted that he doesn't have a role. He's not a regular, a trusted bench bat or a matchup weapon. He's not even being saved for leverage spots. He's just... there.

That might be tolerable for a rebuilding team going nowhere, but it's indefensible for a Pirates team that has spent the season trying to prove it's past that stage. This club has real talent. It has a lineup that has been better than expected. It has young players who need opportunities. It has a playoff race to stay in.

Keeping Ozuna around because cutting him would be embarrassing is not roster management. It's ego management. The embarrassment already happened when the signing failed. The damage now comes from pretending there is still something to rescue.

At some point, the Pirates have to stop acting as though admitting a mistake is worse than continuing one. Ozuna’s contract shouldn't dictate the roster, his past production shouldn't dictate present playing time, and his name shouldn't carry more weight than the reality staring the organization in the face.

If the Pirates still believe there is something left, then play him. Give him at-bats. Let him prove it. But they're not doing that. They're hiding him and treating him like a player they can't use while still refusing to make the obvious move.

The Pirates took a swing on Ozuna, and they missed. It happens. What matters now is whether they are willing to respond like a serious team.

The money is already spent. The production is not coming. The trust is gone.

Marcell Ozuna needs to go.

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