The Pirates’ decision to bring in Marcell Ozuna in February never looked especially safe, and by the end of the season it has only gotten uglier.
Pittsburgh gave Ozuna $12 million despite a pile of warning signs. He was heading into his age-35 season, his production had dropped sharply the year before, his bat speed was moving the wrong way, he was coming off a hip issue and he was essentially limited to designated hitter work, which made the roster less flexible from the start.
The gamble flopped. Ozuna wrapped up his Pirates stint with a .612 OPS and minus-1.1 WAR, according to Baseball-Reference. The team cut bait in early August after waiting months for any kind of rebound that never arrived.
What really drives home how bad the move was came from Alex Stumpf of Book-Rule Bucs. The Pirates went 26-40 in the 66 games Ozuna started and 51-37 in the games he didn’t. That’s a .394 winning percentage with him in the lineup and .580 without him.
Baseball doesn’t hand out losses that cleanly to one player, and Pittsburgh had plenty of other issues in the first half. Still, that split is hard to ignore.
The Pirates are now 53-37 in games where Marcell Ozuna is not in the starting lineup. It’s fair to say that signing is a big reason why this team isn’t going to be playing in October. Here’s the rest of my top 10: https://t.co/8fdlOjdpZs https://t.co/75navlB73X pic.twitter.com/oA5LS1IBaz
- Alex Stumpf (@AlexJStumpf) September 21, 2026
For a club that is spending the last week of September trying to make sense of how it missed the postseason after a real second-half push, Ozuna belongs near the top of the list of regrets.
The issue wasn’t just that he failed to deliver the middle-of-the-order pop Pittsburgh wanted. His presence also changed how the roster had to be used.
Ryan O'Hearn ended up spending much more time in the outfield than the Pirates likely planned, which cut into the lineup flexibility that made him so valuable. O'Hearn also had two separate IL stints because of quad injuries.
Even after the slow start, Pittsburgh kept running Ozuna out there in hopes his track record would kick in. It never happened. He struggled right away, never put together a real hot streak and eventually pushed the Pirates to admit the move had failed with two months still left in the season.
That’s what separates this from a typical free-agent miss. The risk was obvious before Ozuna ever took a swing for Pittsburgh, and the Pirates paid for choosing to ignore it. Now they’re heading to the finish line with a winning record and no playoff berth, while one brutal split hangs over the season: 26-40 with Ozuna starting, 51-37 without him.
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What has stood out for the Pirates is not just the power, but how quickly Gray has rounded out the rest of his game. Director of coaching and player development Michael Chernow pointed to improvements in both his hitting and his defense over the course of the season, the kind of growth that makes a prospects ascent feel less like a hot streak and more like a step forward. For a franchise always looking for the next wave, Gray has become one of the more intriguing names to follow as his rise keeps speeding up. [Read more 🡒]