{"id":448945,"date":"2026-02-04T18:19:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T18:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/448945\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T18:19:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T18:19:08","slug":"pirates-interested-in-marcell-ozuna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/448945\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirates Interested In Marcell Ozuna"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having missed out on several higher-profile big bats, the Pirates are showing some interest in veteran designated hitter Marcell Ozuna<\/a>, per Katie Woo and Will Sammon of The Athletic<\/a>. There\u2019s no indication anything is close to fruition at the moment, but it\u2019s notable in that the Bucs are the first team prominently connected to Ozuna all winter.<\/p>\n

Ozuna, who turned 35 in November, turned in a down showing by his standards in 2025 but was still a better-than-average offensive performer overall. He hit .232\/.355\/.400 with a career-high 15.9% walk rate, a 24.3% strikeout rate, 21 homers and 19 doubles in 592 turns at the plate with Atlanta in the final season of his six-year run there. Ozuna raced out to a scorching start in April and May, was one of the league\u2019s worst hitters in June, and then settled in as a slightly above-average hitter for the season\u2019s final three months.<\/p>\n

While he\u2019d be a clear upgrade to the team\u2019s run-production capabilities, Ozuna isn\u2019t exactly a clean fit in Pittsburgh. Beyond the fact that PNC Park is perhaps the worst environment in MLB for right-handed power, the Buccos\u2019 roster isn\u2019t well constructed to accommodate an everyday designated hitter. Spencer Horwitz<\/a> and Ryan O\u2019Hearn<\/a> are lined up to share time at first base and designated hitter. Horwitz, after a slow start to his season in 2025, finished the year out on a blistering .314\/.402\/.539 tear in his final two-plus months of play. He\u2019s locked into an everyday role. O\u2019Hearn can play in the outfield corners, but Bryan Reynolds<\/a> has one of those two spots locked down.<\/p>\n

Signing Ozuna would push O\u2019Hearn into a primary outfield role. He\u2019s graded out as a quality first baseman in recent seasons with Baltimore but has below-average grades in the outfield corners. Slotting O\u2019Hearn into left field with any sort of regularity could also cut into playing time for fleet-footed Jake Mangum<\/a> and serve as a roadblock for top prospect Jhostynxon Garcia<\/a> to push his way onto the big league roster; the Pirates acquired Garcia earlier this winter in the trade sending righty Johan Oviedo<\/a> to Boston.<\/p>\n

Of course, there\u2019s an argument to be made that the perennially punchless Pirates ought to be willing to sacrifice some defense in the name of adding thump to the lineup. Pittsburgh\u2019s pitching staff is the backbone of the roster, with Paul Skenes<\/a>, Bubba Chandler<\/a> and Braxton Ashcraft<\/a> all boasting well above-average strikeout capabilities (and, in the case of Skenes and Ashcraft, plus ground-ball rates that slightly lessen concerns regarding a shakier outfield defense). The lineup, meanwhile, has been one of the weakest \u2014 if not\u00a0the weakest \u2014 in Major League Baseball for more than a decade. The last time Pittsburgh fielded even an average offensive club by measure of wRC+ was back in 2014.<\/p>\n

An outfield with O\u2019Hearn in left, Oneil Cruz<\/a> in center and Reynolds in right would be ugly from a defensive standpoint, but a lineup including Reynolds, O\u2019Hearn, Horwitz, Ozuna, trade acquisition Brandon Lowe<\/a> and, eventually, the top prospect in all of baseball (shortstop Konnor Griffin<\/a>) would be more formidable than anything the Pirates have trotted out in recent seasons.<\/p>\n

The elephant in the room is that it\u2019d be difficult to fit both Ozuna and franchise icon Andrew McCutchen<\/a> onto the same roster. Both are right-handed hitting outfielders who\u2019ve moved primarily into DH status \u2014 Ozuna in particular. He didn\u2019t play a single inning in the field in 2024 or 2025 and only logged 14 innings in 2023. McCutchen played only 16 games in the outfield last season. They\u2019d hold similar roles on this version of the Pirates, but the Bucs would probably feel more confident in Ozuna\u2019s abilities versus right-handed pitching after he hit .235\/.347\/.415 against righties to McCutchen\u2019s .228\/.326\/.358.<\/p>\n

When McCutchen returned to the Pirates three years ago, he signaled that his intent was to close out his career in Pittsburgh, where he still lives. The team clearly felt similarly, welcoming him back in each subsequent offseason. He\u2019s signed a trio of one-year, $5MM contracts as he continues that full-circle final chapter of his career. But the 39-year-old McCutchen recently voiced some frustration with the manner in which talks have (or have not) progressed this winter. Ken Rosenthal and Stephen Nesbitt of The Athletic reported this week<\/a> that McCutchen met personally with team owner Bob Nutting last Thursday.<\/p>\n

[Related: Where Can The Pirates Turn For Another Bat?<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Whether it\u2019s Ozuna, McCutchen or another target entirely, it seems clear that the Bucs are still intent on adding to the lineup despite various high-profile misses. They had interest in Josh Naylor<\/a> before he re-signed with the Mariners and were reportedly willing to offer him upwards of $80MM. They put forth a reported $120-125MM offer to Kyle Schwarber<\/a>, which would\u2019ve been the largest contract in franchise history. The Pirates had interest in both Kazuma Okamoto<\/a> and Eugenio Su\u00e1rez<\/a> before the pair signed in Toronto and Cincinnati, respectively. Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette<\/a> and Alex Stumpf of MLB.com<\/a> both reported after the Su\u00e1rez signing that the Pirates were willing to (or perhaps did) offer an extra year at the same annual value, but Su\u00e1rez preferred to return to an organization he already knew \u2014 particularly given the Reds\u2019 hitter-friendly park and last season\u2019s playoff berth.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s still a week before pitchers and catchers report and about seven weeks until Opening Day. The Pirates\u2019 $95MM projected payroll, per RosterResource<\/a>, is up a bit from last year\u2019s levels, but their pursuits of Su\u00e1rez and especially Schwarber suggest a willingness to push things considerably higher. It\u2019s likely they\u2019ll add at least one more bat, but their options have dwindled considerably.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Having missed out on several higher-profile big bats, the Pirates are showing some interest in veteran designated hitter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":448946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[77464,9892,363,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-448945","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-andrew-mccutchen","9":"tag-marcell-ozuna","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/448946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}