Had shoulder clean up surgery in October 2018. Said it had bothered him all season.
Can’t speak to 2019, when he had 29 home runs and 89 RBI in only 130 games.
Let’s be realistic…2019 was the easiest year to hit HRs since the height of the steroid era. Here are some players who had more HRs than Ozuna, all of whom happened to have career years in the year of the rabbit ball:
Jorge Soler 48, next best year of his career is 12
Gleyber Torres 38
Kyle Schwarber 38
Franmil Reyes 37
Eduardo Escobar 35, over 1/3 of his 9 year career total HRs
Marcus Semein 33
Xander Bogaerts 33, a good ballplayer who happened to set his career high by 10
Austin Meadows 33, a rookie not expected to hit for much power (who had 10 HRs in his other ~100 career games)
Kole Calhoun 33
Ketel Marte 32-A career high of 14 before this. He hit 2 in 45 games this year
Jose Altuve 31. Again, a career high by 8 in only 124 games.
Renato Nunez 31
Randal Grichuk 31
Brett Gardner had 28. The point being…anyone who could hit the ball in the air could hit 30 HRs in 2019. In the words of a famous singer, 29 “don’t impress me much.” 😉
Ken Rosenthal has more details on Ozuna’s agent switch. Note that Roman had been looking for a $100 MM contract, much more than the $72 MM MLBTR estimated.
“Roman was marketing Ozuna as a left fielder who started 21 games in the outfield last season and was fully recovered from the shoulder surgery he underwent in October 2018. The agent’s goal seemed to be a $100 million contract…”