After stumbling through the first half of the Major League Baseball season, the Texas Rangers are beginning to resemble the team that many predicted would represent the American League in the World Series.
Since bottoming out at 29-35 on June 6, the Rangers have gone 23-15 to surge within 1.5 games of the final Wild Card spot. A rotation headlined by ageless veterans Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi has been among the league’s best, while the return of superstar shortstop Corey Seager has reinvigorated a dormant offense. The club’s potential was on full display this past weekend when they took two out of three from the American League-leading Detroit Tigers, allowing just three total runs in the process.
Perhaps most importantly, this hot streak has positioned the Rangers to buy at the trade deadline rather than commit to a once-certain sell-off. Despite showing some improvement in recent weeks, the offense is a shell of its former self, with massive regression from Adolis García, Josh Jung, Joc Pederson, and Jonah Heim has sunk them to 23rd in the majors in runs scored. In fact, only the Cleveland Guardians, Chicago White Sox and Pittsburgh Pirates have posted a lower team OPS than the Rangers' .674 mark.
If the Rangers are serious about making another postseason run, they will need to add another impact bat alongside Seager, and ESPN’s Jeff Passan believes they can find a match in Atlanta Braves designated hitter Marcell Ozuna.
“The team's recent hot streak is the sort of thing that could embolden him to go after a bat like Ozuna, who, with Drake Baldwin’s emergence in Atlanta, no longer has a regular spot in the lineup,“ wrote Passan.
While the Rangers were able to climb out of an early-season hole, the Braves have never been able to play up to the talent level of their roster, currently sitting 10.5 games out of the final Wild Card spot with a 44-56 record. Though the record may suggest otherwise, the Braves might choose to hold on to many of their key players who could potentially contribute to a 2026 turnaround, but a player like Ozuna, a pending free agent who has been squeezed out of an everyday role, is an obvious trade candidate.
The bigger question is not whether Ozuna will be available but rather whether the Rangers would even be interested. The 34-year-old Ozuna has seen his OPS drop over 170 points from 2024 and has batted just .208/.318/.342 since April 29. Yet while Ozuna may not be the hitter he once was, he has still posted one of the highest walk rates in baseball and has continued to post a hard-hit rate close to 50%. Ozuna has been known as a streaky hitter over his career, so perhaps a move to a playoff contender can reinvigorate his slumping bat.
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