Marcell Ozuna is actually having something of a comeback season with the Braves this year, and it's not exactly the first comeback year the veteran power hitter has had. After the Cardinals contract dulled Ozuna's appeal, the 2020 season in Atlanta made him relevant again, with an NL-leading 18 homers and 56 RBIs in 60 games. He was also a fixture of the team's postseason effort, and made himself a team hero just then.
Of course...the following year, 2 very important things happened. 1- Ozuna was suspended for a domestic abuse charge, and 2- the Braves won the World Series without him. And that is admittedly a lot to come back from.
With everything that has elapsed with Julio Urias, there's a lot of conversation about the stigma of domestic abuse and what the baseball fanbase is allowed to forgive or forget. I'm of the opinion that this isn't the sort of thing someone should be able to redeem themselves for: if you assault somebody in your own home, there's no defense for it, no way of spinning it. You messed up, and even an apology can't mend a wound that gaping wide. It's a lot like HGHs or steroids; you can be apologetic, but that stigma still follows you, and while many people will forget once you start playing well, it still happened [, Fernando].
This year we've seen both Julio Urias and Wander Franco suspended for different types of abuse, both of which extremely bad. One of them will probably never play an MLB game again. Yet Urias has been suspended for this sort of thing before, came back from it, and...obviously didn't learn his lesson. It's what's plagued Aroldis Chapman's season, even if he has been decent for Texas; he's had enough suspensions that you can't really be calm watching him, cause he could mess up again at any time.
But it's funny that some cases of morally reprehensible behavior [Trevor Bauer, Anthony Bass, Franco] are rightly dealt with, while others are given a stern 'don't do that again' and thrown back into the mix.
And that's what conflicts me so much with Marcell Ozuna. He's clearly having his best year since before the suspension, hitting .272 with 33 homers and 78 RBIs. The last few months have seen his production return to levels that Marlins and Braves fans fell in love with years ago, and it's clear he's still a respectable power hitter. Yet...two years ago he still had domestic abuse charges. And it's hard to completely let that go seeing how he's doing this year. Ozuna isn't the most important hitter on the Braves this year, there's four or five that people have talked about more, but he's still one of the team's more reliable offensive producers, and he'll likely be starting playoff games at DH. Regardless of what happened, he's still being given these opportunities.
I don't know how I feel about it still. I don't even know how Braves fans feel about it. It's nice that he's playing so well, especially in a year when the Braves are winning 90+ games, but there's still that large cloud following him around, even if we wanna pretend it's not there.
I'm very happy with the amount of damage the Braves have done this year, and I assume they'll go relatively far into the playoffs. It will be interesting what kind of role Ozuna plays in this team going forward. That's all I'll say.
Coming Tomorrow- Twins fans have waited years for this man to hit like he's hitting now.
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