Guardians must steer clear of aging free agent with questionable past

While  the Guardians were able to wiggle their way into the postseason picture last season thanks to a historic September, their offense is still a clear red flag that hasn’t really been addressed this offseason. 

So, at face value, free agent slugger Marcell Ozuna looks like the perfect low-budget free agent the Guardians need. Not only has he hit 296 home runs in his career, but he’s just a year removed from posting a season with a .302 average with 104 RBI. 

But just because he has the skillset the Guardians need doesn’t mean that’s the player they need. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. 

The Guardians need to stay away from signing Marcell Ozuna 

Although there hasn’t been any reporting about Ozuna going to the Guardians, FanSided’s Christopher Kline published a story earlier this week urging the Guardians to sign Ozuna before the start of spring training. 

Yes, Ozuna has the kind of power the Guardians desperately need. But there’s more to his situation than that, which is why the Guardians should stay away.

First off, he’s clearly in decline, as he slashed just .232/.355/.400 last season with 21 home runs and 68 RBI in the final season of the four-year, $64 million deal he signed with the Braves.

Those are solid numbers sure, but he’s not the kind of player that he was early in his career, so there’d be no justification to put him in the way of young prospects like Chase DeLauter or George Valera. 

And then there’s the case of his positional (in)flexibility. Ozuna hasn’t played in the field since he had a two-game cameo in left field in 2023, so he’d bring an unnecessary complication to the Guardians’ roster. 

Cleveland limped through last year with David Fry as a full-time designated hitter, but that was due to injury and was done with the understanding that he’d get back to being a utility player in 2026. 

Signing Ozuna to be a full-time designated hitter would be a waste of money. 

And if that’s not enough, he served a 20-game suspension under MLB’s domestic violence policy for an incident during the 2021 season and was also arrested for a DUI in 2022. 

Not all money is good money, and signing Ozuna would be a tangible example of that. 

There’s been almost no reporting about Ozuna’s market since the start of spring training, so it seems pretty clear that the rest of the baseball world feels the same way about the 35-year-old. 

The Braves ended up benching Ozuna midway through last season after they were unable to deal him at the trade deadline, which ended up becoming a harbinger of what his free agency has looked like. 

At some point, some team is going to bite and sign Ozuna. It shouldn’t be the Guardians.