The Atlanta Braves announced outfielder Marcell Ozuna will miss about six weeks after fracturing his middle and ring fingers on Tuesday night.
Now, it's up to general manager Alex Anthopoulos and manager Brian Snitker to find his replacement.
"You've basically gotten to this point, essentially, without Marcell Ozuna or with him at a very diminished capacity where you can kind of find that production--that similar kind of production--from other players," 92.9 The Game Braves' reporter Joe Patrick told Andy and Randy.
However, Ozuna looked like he was starting to get going and turning his slow start around. He was hitting .213 with a .645 OPS when he went down.
"It's just too bad that this happened, and I think what the Braves will do is probably just continue to use guys like Guillermo Heredia, Ender Inciarte, Cristian Pache.
I also think you'll see a lot more Ehire Adrianza out there in the outfield as well...I don't think they're going to go out there and make some sort of trade to fill that hole."
Braves outfield prospect Drew Waters' name has also come up as a potential fill-in for Ozuna.
"He's the guy who everybody's been talking about. He's the top prospect on this team...I just feel like people have gotten a little bit ahead of themselves when we talk about Drew Waters...He still has 21 strikeouts in 74 plate appearances in Triple-A which is not great at all."
"He's still a very, very kind of raw player and I just think that we're getting a little bit ahead of ourselves--I think we're getting ahead of ourselves in thinking that he would be a guy that would come up and somehow make a bigger difference than a proven veteran player like a Guillermo Heredia would be. I think, honestly, Guillermo Heredia would probably give you more offensive production than a guy like Drew Waters at this point."
