Braves fans are fuming over Brian Snitker’s Marcell Ozuna comments

Marcell Ozuna has been perhaps even worse to start 2023 for the Braves than he was last year. And fans aren’t having Brian Snitker’s latest comments.

Throughout the 2022 season and leading into this past offseason, the cry of Atlanta Braves fans everywhere was for the club to find a way to get rid the team of Marcell Ozuna. Since signing a four-year, $65 million deal with Atlanta after a great 2020 season, it’s been a tiresome refrain of underperformance on the field (not to mention his off-field transgressions).

Then the worst thing that could happen did during Spring Training: Marcell Ozuna played well. In the Grapefruit League, the veteran outfielder and DH hit .315 with an .854 OPS while mashing seven extra-base hits. It was enough to give manager Brian Snitker (and some more optimistic members of the fanbase) hope that Ozuna could turn things around.

Early-season results, however, have been even worse than in 2022 when Ozuna hit a paltry .226 with a .687 OPS. In Wednesday night’s win over the Reds, Ozuna went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts. For the season now, he’s 3-for-36 (.086) with two home runs, a .445 OPS and 13 strikeouts.

At this point, Ozuna just looks painfully obvious to be a net negative. He’s primarily a DH given his lack of prowess in left field — despite a need there for the Braves — and now he’s not even hitting.

And all of this makes Snitker’s latest comments about the situation more difficult to consider.

Braves fans are livid at latest Marcell Ozuna plan from Brian Snitker

After the 0-for-4 performance against the Reds, Snitker updated where the team stood with Ozuna, and indicated that the veteran will still be in the lineup for the time being.

As you’d expect, the reaction from fans was one of a group of people at their wit’s end watching this player completely fail to deliver for over a year now.

In minor defense of Snitker, injuries have wrecked the Braves early in the season, particularly with players who could push Ozuna out of the lineup. Platooning Sean Murphy and Travis d’Arnaud at catcher and DH would be in play, but the latter is sidelined with a concussion. The Michael Harris II injury means that the club is short on bodies in the outfield.

So that does force Snitker’s hand to some degree — but there is still seemingly a lack of urgency from the manager to remedy the blatantly obvious issue of Marcell Ozuna.

Could the team call up Vaughn Grissom to get into the DH role and then allow Sam Hilliard and Eddie Rosario to play in left field? Could the team go lefty-heavy with Hilliard and Rosario? The answer in both cases is yet, but instead, Ozuna keeps seeing the lineup, keeps getting at-bats, and keeps not hitting.

This is more than just fan overreaction at this point, though. Ozuna has proven he’s no longer an asset, no matter what his contract is paying him. And at some point, the diminishing returns have to become too unignorable for Snitker to get him out of the lineup.

Somehow, we haven’t reached that point yet. But if this keeps up, it should come soon.