SAN DIEGO – A couple hours before the series finale at Petco Park, Marcell Ozuna stood near the backstop and talked to a man from the other team. It was Mike Shildt, who manages the Padres now but was Ozuna’s manager in St. Louis years ago.
This is Ozuna.
He has a ton of relationships throughout the game. And in the Braves’ clubhouse, Ozuna’s teammates swear by him. You always hear about how he is such a great teammate and how he is always willing to help anyone with anything.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution compiled stories about Ozuna from a group of his teammates in Atlanta.
Below are the perspectives of different players who share a clubhouse with the Big Bear, who is an All-Star for the third time in his career.
Jarred Kelenic
When asked about Ozuna, Kelenic begins with this:
“I would say the biggest thing that I’ve learned from Ozuna in my short time playing with him is that from day one, since the day that I met him, he’s made me feel a part of the team. And I first met him at Braves Fest, and he always told me, he’s like, ‘Listen, I’m always here for you, I’m always gonna have your back. If you need something, you just let me know.’ It’s one thing for someone to say it, but then it’s another for them to mean it. When he talks to you, just the way he acts around everybody, he truly means that. He has every single guy’s back in here, and I think that the respect for him in this clubhouse is like really no other player that I’ve played with.
“Obviously, he’s an unbelievable talent on the field. But his personality, I think, really speaks volumes. Just how consistent he is. Each and every day, he’s the same Ozuna. I think that’s one of the biggest reasons why the respect in this clubhouse is so high for him, is because he’s the same guy each and every day. He brings the most out of the guys, each and every day. And he’s a winner. He wants to win. You couldn’t ask for a better teammate.”
Earlier in the season, Kelenic spent a week or so searching for a specific feeling at the plate.
“Without me even saying anything, he came right up to me and told me how patient that I need to be, and that the season’s so long, and really broke things down for things down for me and made me flush it,” Kelenic said. “It wasn’t long after that all of the sudden, I started to click and really started to play well. He lives by that. Whether he’s going really well or he’s not, he lives by that. And that’s cool to see.”
Here’s something telling about Ozuna: He knows everyone by name, Kelenic said. Everyone.
And, Kelenic said, it seems like Ozuna is teaching his kids the same thing. His boys will come into the clubhouse and go up to Kelenic. “Kelenic, what’s up?” they might say.
“It’s one thing for (them to know) me – the nights that I’m playing they see my name,” Kelenic said. “But all of the sudden, a trainer will walk by, and they’ll be like, ‘Jeff!’ It’s like, he’s teaching his kids to know people by their name and call them by their name. That’s not just a coincidental thing – that’s something that he values and I think that he teaches his kids that. And I think that just shows who he is as a person.”
“Jeff” is Jeff Stevenson – the Braves’ assistant athletic trainer.
Ozuna has specific handshakes with everyone in the dugout, from the camera crew members to the first responders.
He even knows the grounds crew employees.
“We don’t see them a lot, right?” Kelenic said. “He knows each and every one of them. And, like, yeah, he’s been here longer than I have, but he has a real relationship with them and everybody gets to see that side of Marcell Ozuna, and I think that it’s a cool person to be around.”
Jesse Chavez
Chavez is hard on himself. Ozuna helps him stay away from that.
Chavez and Ozuna sit next to one another on the bus to the airport. On the plane, Ozuna will sit right in front of Chavez.
Ozuna has heard little comments Chavez has made when he’s being too tough on himself, and has helped put Chavez at ease.
“He sees that and he’s like, ‘Hey, don’t worry about it. You’re alright,’” Chavez said. “You cherish those a lot more than, ‘Good job, bla bla bla,’ that stuff. We’re up here and you’re expected to do your job. When you don’t and it doesn’t go your way that one day but you’ve been doing it for so long, for so many times, he’s really good at keeping you away from going down that path of, ‘Should I fix something? Was I tipping?’ You know what I mean? Stuff like that. He’s really good at keeping you in the moment.”
Ozuna has made mistakes in his past. He’s performed poorly on the field – namely at the start of last season.
Still, Chavez said Ozuna has been the same guy.
“He’s never falling in a bad mode and never falling in a (mood) where you’re looking in your locker type of deal – which is unique,” Chavez said. “Especially all he’s been through the last few years with him, and coming into what’s happening now – it’s a testament to him. He just tells everybody to stay on the task at hand, keep everybody upbeat. Whether you’re going good or bad, he always has something positive to say, just to make sure you don’t fall in that lull. Which is huge. You need that from a leader.”
Oh, and about Ozuna knowing everyone’s names?
Chavez said that’s a lesson from right-hander Ricky Nolasco, who was on the Marlins when Ozuna debuted in 2013. If Nolasco were talking to another veteran, he’d make the young guys introduce themselves to that player.
Ozuna has carried this forward.
“He knows everybody,” Chavez said of Ozuna. “That’s just an old-school trait.”
Travis d’Arnaud
Earlier this season, Travis d’Arnaud hit three home runs in a game. Three!
The backstory that you couldn’t have seen during the game?
He talked to Ozuna the night before that three-homer game.
“Every time I don’t feel right at the plate,” d’Arnaud said, “he’s always open ears and gives me advice.”
The night before the three-homer performance, Ozuna told d’Arnaud that he was drifting a bit in the box. He advised him to stay back a bit more.
In 2020, Ozuna and d’Arnaud talked hitting all the time when d’Arnaud went to the Braves. At that point, d’Arnaud was trying to carry over what he did with the Rays.
But Ozuna, of course, is just a fun guy to have around.
“Jokingly, we obviously talk about defense with him, too,” d’Arnaud said. “He takes groundballs at first base sometimes, and we’ll joke around and try to compare him to other first baseman that are in the league. It makes for a fun time. We’ve seen him drop a couple foul balls that were hit in the dugout, and so we make fun of him there. He’s easy to tell a joke to.”
How important is an Ozuna-type personality to have in the clubhouse?
“It’s really important, especially during 181 (days), we’re all together,” d’Arnaud said. “In this game, you fail more than you succeed, so having somebody like that around you all the time is really important.”
Zack Short
In one game this season, Ozuna proved to Zack Short that he might just be a hitting wizard.
The two were in the dugout talking. What unfolded is a terrific example of Ozuna’s intelligence and instincts as a hitter.
“He was like, ‘Shorty, look. My hands are in this position and when I go to swing, I make contact and I just roll over,’” Short said, recalling what Ozuna told him. “He’s like, ‘Next AB, I’m gonna swing through it, and it’s gonna be a second pitch or first-pitch (off-speed), and I’m gonna hit a home run.’ I was like, ‘All right, I believe you.’ And, like, it just happened. It’s not the only time he’s done that, too.”
This story is factual: On June 6 in Washington, Ozuna smashed a first-pitch slider for a home run off Hunter Harvey – now a reliever for the Royals – in a Braves win. Before the homer, Ozuna was 1-for-3 with a strikeout, a groundout and a single.
During the recent Phillies series, Short heard Ozuna say, “Man, I feel good.” Then he went out and hit home runs in consecutive at-bats – one in his last at-bat of the series opener, another in his first at-bat of the second game.
“It’s just, like, he knows,” Short said. “He’s hit long enough in his career where I think you see him go into a (weeklong) slump or so, you don’t see him go into (a slump for) a month or two – where I think he is just so in tune with his swing and his body, he knows exactly what he wants to do.”
Has Short played with anyone else like this?
“Miggy,” he said, referring to Miguel Cabrera, who’ll eventually be a first-ballot Hall of Famer.
Ozuna loves hitting and the game – so much so that when he’s the designated hitter, he’ll still pay attention to the finer details of every contest.
“And even in the dugout, he’s DH’ing obviously – he’s in there every single pitch,” Short said. “I’ve talked about it before, where some guys that I’ve played with, if they’re DH’ing, they’re kind of in and out of the clubhouse, taking a load off, coming in (the clubhouse) and getting a drink or something. He’s out there every single pitch. And if he’s not, then he’s in the cage for about two minutes figuring something, and then he goes and hits. He loves it, man.”
When the Braves acquired Short, he met the team at Citi Field in New York. He realized that Ozuna knew who he was, even though the two hadn’t ever crossed paths.
Now, they talk hitting all the time.
“He wants everybody in here to get better,” Short said. “He doesn’t want to step on toes, but if you go up to him and say, ‘Hey, what do you got?’ he’ll tell you exactly what he sees in that moment. He won’t shy away. And he makes you feel welcome no matter who you are.”
Orlando Arcia
This season, Arcia has struggled following a career year in 2023. For him and others, Ozuna is a second set of eyes.
“He’s always watching our film, the other guys’ film, especially when they’re not playing well, and just trying to help us out whenever we’re kind of struggling,” Arcia said through interpreter Franco García. “And obviously, he has a ton of experience and he’s a great hitter, so it’s just really helpful for us for him to watch our film and kind of give us feedback on what’s happening.”
Adam Duvall
In the season’s first half, Duvall hasn’t performed as well at the plate as he would’ve liked. Several times, Ozuna has gone up to Duvall.
“It’s just things like, ‘Hey, you’re leaking a little bit. You’re kind of going toward the pitcher a little bit too much. Stay centered,’” Duvall said. “I think that was probably the biggest (thing). That was earlier in the year. And then he popped over probably two or three weeks ago and was like, ‘Hey, I’m starting to see it again.’ He makes himself available to talk, and that’s the biggest thing you can do, is just be there for someone when you’re struggling. You know what I mean? It doesn’t have to always be like, ‘Hey, you should do this or you should do that.’ It’s more just being there to talk to, and that’s what we try to do for each other.”
Matt Olson
Olson and Ozuna are on season three of being teammates.
“I mean, we talk hitting a pretty good bit,” Olson said. “We’ve played with each other for a while now to where we kind of know each other’s swings. We sit by each other on the plane, are playing cards and stuff. If either of us kind of sees something that just looks a little off, (we’ll) say something (like)’You’re standing up through your swing. Get in your legs.’”
They have seen the good, bad and ugly of one another’s swings. And Ozuna is great at breaking down hitting without watching the video.
He just tells teammates what he sees.
“Yeah, I think he does a good job of – he’s real feel-based,” Olson said. “A lot of guys dig into video, where he more so is watching the game and watching the timing of it, and has little cues. Instead of going in and being, ‘Your hands are an inch high’ or whatever it might be, he’s got some good little tidbits or thoughts, or like I said, cues that can kind of correct things. He’s got at seeing those.”
Aaron Bummer
Bummer, who is new to the team this season, had a rough first week as he allowed three earned runs over his first two appearances.
Over the next couple of weeks, the left-handed reliever began settling in and finding a groove on the mound. And Ozuna noticed.
“He was a guy,” Bummer said, “that straight up just said, he was like, ‘Hey, you can tell the difference in yourself. You can tell the difference of how it’s slowing down, and you can tell the difference of (seeming) more confident.’”
Before the Braves acquired Bummer, he had heard good things about Ozuna from the other side of the field. “It’s cool to come into a locker room (where) those same feelings are felt inside the locker room as well,” Bummer said. He’s learned that Ozuna is someone who, as Bummer put it, does things the right way.
“You hear what a lot of the new guys say, and it’s something I said too: Everybody that’s new, that walks in the clubhouse, feels like they belong and they’re working toward a common goal, and he’s kind of a big proponent of that,” Bummer said. “He’s the one that’s the first one out there telling us to go out there and have fun. You see the way that he plays the game – honestly, and the way that he interacts with guys on the other teams, too.”
Another thing Bummer has learned?
“He’s somebody that, just because you’re a bullpen guy, doesn’t mean that you’re not part of it,” he said. “He’s one, big family guy and he’s propping everybody up as much as he can.”
About the Author
