St. Louis Cardinals: Ozuna is finally fixing the bum wing

St. Louis Cardinals’ left fielder took a step back in 2018 due to a common shoulder issue that the entire world knew about. Finally, the outfielder is getting the shoulder surgically cleaned up.

One piece of news Cardinal Nation had been waiting for since John Mozeliak’s after-season press conference came forward today after a seemingly long period of unneeded anticipation. Per everyone’s favorite non-St. Louis Cardinals affiliated reporter, Craig Mish, Marcell Ozuna underwent a shoulder cleanup on Tuesday (see the tweet below).

Ozuna regressed from a career-best slash line of .312/.376/.548 with 37 HR and 124 RBI in 2017 to a solid .280/.325/.433 with 23 HR and 88 RBI in 2018. The problem with those numbers was the expectation that Ozuna would anchor the lineup from the cleanup spot, and even with regression expected, that much regression was not expected.

The shoulder problems were common for Ozuna in 2017, and after an apparently ineffective healing approach over the 2017 offseason, the shoulder pain led to Ozuna’s offensive decline in 2018.

The decline was not limited to the offensive side, in the field, Ozuna’s arm strength declined for the second straight year. In 2016, his throws averaged 89 mph, in 2017, it dropped to 81.5 mph as the shoulder became an issue, then this year it dropped even more to 77.9 mph.

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This ranked him last among left fielders.

In the post season press conference, Mozeliak called on Ozuna to fix his shoulder. Firing a shot across his bow, Mo said, “we can show you where the water is, but we can’t make you drink.”

For context, Mo was answering a question about Ozuna’s arm and the plan for the off season. Mo explained that every resource would be made available to Ozuna before he gave the quote above.

Ozuna’s response?  “I’m going to get right. Big Year. You watch.”

And so with this news, Ozuna is backing up his words and hopefully will get right this year. Does this mean he will revert back to his 2017 year? Probably not. But could he be somewhere close? Of course.

Hopefully the combination of both Ozuna entering a contract year and the shoulder getting fixed will lead to another season close to 2017.

What is your reaction to the Ozuna news? Hopefully spring comes quick! Thanks for reading.