Ozzie Albies is becoming a problem

Atlanta's second baseman is mired in a massive slump and there's no signs that he'll come out of it any time soon

Four of Atlanta’s hitters have played in all 70 games so far this season: Matt Olson, Austin Riley, Michael Harris II, and Ozzie Albies.

Of the four, the worst statistical performances in virtually every category belong to Ozzie.

He’s got the lowest batting average (.222) and RBI total (25) of the quartet. He’s tied with Harris in homers with six and beating the notoriously walk-adverse Money Mike by just a single point of OPS, .619 to .618.

What’s going on with Ozzie, and is it fixable? Let’s talk about it.

He was doing well for a while

While the start of the season for Atlanta was a nightmare beginning, Ozzie…wasn’t bad during this stretch. Across the team’s first nineteen games, a span where they went just 6-13, Ozzie hit .257 with a .789 OPS and had four homers, 10 runs scored, and 11 RBI. That’s a 162-game pace of 34 homers, 85 runs, and 94 RBI. He put up a wRC+ of 116, well above-average even after positional adjustments were applied.

He was flashing the leather, too, with Ozzie’s defensive range trending up after a few seasons of below-average production at the lesser of the two middle infield positions. He was sitting at plus one Outs Above Average on range after just two weeks of the season.

That’s no longer the case, on every possible front. Ozzie’s offense since the Minnesota series has seen him hit just .214/.290/.276, good for a .566 OPS that would be the third-worst in baseball¹ had the post-Twins series Ozzie had enough at-bats to qualify. Since the sweep of the Twins, Ozzie’s hit just two home runs and eight total extra-base hits despite more than 210 plate appearances.

For context of just how bad a .276 slug is, Atlanta’s shortstop Nick Allen has nine career homers in 962 MLB plate appearances and his slugging is still .280 for his career. Ender Inciarte hit 32 homers for Atlanta in 868 games over four seasons and finished with a Braves-era slug of .382. Heck, Max Fried’s career slugging was .327.

And despite his recent on-base streak, it’s been even worse recently. Ozzie’s hitting just .148 with a .167 slug over his last fifteen games and went 0-12 with five strikeouts against Colorado this weekend.

Ozzie’s defense has cratered, too. He’s now exactly 0 OAA overall with the glove (which would actually be an improvement over his -7 and -1 the past two seasons), but his range has already ticked into negative at -1 Run Vaue. His arm, already the worst non-first base arm in the sport, is now bottom six in all of baseball at just 70.4 mph.

We discussed Ozzie's situation back in late April and tried to figure out what was wrong with his bat (other than it being too big, clearly). Have things gotten better or worse since then?

Ozzie’s given back some of the approach-fueled improvements

At the time, the two big takeaways were that his strikeout and walk rates were some of the best of his career, while his quality of contact was significantly down from his career norms.

But now? The strikeout rate’s regressed right to his career average, dropping from 13.83% to 16.6% (against a career average of 16.8%). The walk rate is still strong, increasing slightly from 8.7% to 9.1%.

But the quality of contact hasn’t grown along with the increased whiffs. While Ozzie’s actually improved his average exit velocity from late-April to now, going from 85.3 mph to 86.5 mph, so has everyone else in baseball and so his percentile ranking is still exactly where it was back then, 7th percentile overall. His hard-hit rate is virtually the same as April, at 27.1%, and that’s still just 4th percentile in the sport. His bat speed of 68.2 mph is still among the worst in baseball at just 7th percentile.

He’s added whiff without a corresponding improvement in power production versus the league average.

What does Ozzie do well?

Being honest, on a baseball field, it’s not a whole lot. He’s above average at walking (58th percentile 9.1%), not striking out (a 77th percentile 16.6%), and not whiffing (a 67th percentile 21.6%). He’s also good at running the bases overall, sitting at an 82nd percentile +1 Run Value, almost entirely fueled by having taken a few extra bases on base hits to the outfield.

In virtually every other on-field metric, he’s below-average for both his position and the league as a whole.

Here’s a look at the Statcast; the amount of dark blue might surprise you:

While we all have this idea of what Ozzie Albies has been in his career floating around our heads, he’s just not that guy anymore.

What does Atlanta do now?

As I wrote back in late April, I think the ship has sailed on an extension. The only reason that the two $7M club options for 2026 and 2027 are still in play is that the buyout on each is roughly $4M. Paying just $3M is a pittance for the possibility of getting the old Ozzie Albies back, as well as keeping the continuity of Atlanta’s most tenured player and Ronald’s best friend on the roster for a while longer.

But what do the Braves lose by bringing Ozzie back? As we’ve learned by now with Brian Snitker, he’s going to play the veteran if he has him. Ozzie has been a net negative from a win probability standpoint this season, coming in at -2.00 Win Probability Added and -4.68 Run Expectancy, per Baseball Reference.

Any new manager added over the winter is likely going to defer to Ozzie early in the season, too, before contemplating changes in the lineup at second base if the team stumbles to a poor start.

Listen: We all like Ozzie Albies. He’s fun and a welcome bit of continuity to a team that’s seen several stalwarts like Freddie Freeman, Dansby Swanson, and Max Fried leave over the last few offseasons.

But from a baseball perspective, he’s just not that good anymore. He’s improved on the edges since late April - his pop-up rate went from 15.6% to ‘only’ 10.6% - but the overall package still isn’t that great.

Is it fixable? Maybe. He should probably ditch the lefty hitting - he’s got a .215 average this season as a lefty hitter as compared to a .254 as a righty, although both are well off of his carer norms - and using him at designated hitter next season might be a better move than running him out there every day at second base with another year of the aging curve behind him.

But it’s dire, and even when he’s been at his best this season, it hasn’t been very good. The Braves have bigger problems to fix than Ozzie Albies right now, but when his time does finally come, Alex Anthopoulos will need to make a very unpopular decision.

1. He’d be above just Brewers shortstop Joey Ortiz (.504) and Angels utilityman Luis Rengifo (.547) on the boards.