Miami Marlins Best To Wear Jersey Number Series No. 13: Marcell Ozuna

Name the Top 10 single-season performances by a hitter in Miami Marlins history.

Go ahead, we've got time- pretty sure he team hasn't even finished unpacking in Jupiter yet.

Giancarlo Stanton? Bingo- that's three of them, including the best. There's a great Miami Marlins fandom age-line we can draw based on whether you said Gary Sheffield or Hanley Ramirez next, but that's three more off the board. Miguel Cabrera? But of course- there goes two more. After that, it gets complicated. Unless you were one of my first to say Sheffield readers, in which case you know all about the awesomeness of Cliff Floyd's 2001 season. Well that, or you did your homework earlier in Marlin Maniac's Best To Wear The Miami Marlins Jersey Number Series and didn't skip the the No. 30 entry.

That still leaves one more season though...and it goes to Marcell Ozuna.

Miami's best to ever wear the No. 13 jersey owns the 8th best single-season WAR total by a hitter with a 5.7 total back in 2017, and is tied for the tenth best Marlins career WAR total (13.7) for a position player with Jeff Conine. He went to two straight All-Star games at two different positions. Unfortunately, his legacy is marred by some very Hall of Shame worthy actions off the field after leaving Miami. Yet while on the diamond in South Florida, the production was Marlins Hall of Fame worthy. So he gets the nod here per the rules of the series basing this on Marlins career WAR, but you'll have to excuse if the praise isn't particularly effusive.

Two things really stand out here with Ozuna and the No. 13 jersey that are worth reflecting on.

For one, just take a moment to think about how different Ozuna might be remembered if his career best season wasn't in 2017. Of all the entrants on the Miami Marlins Top 10 single-season hitters list for WAR, only two of them came in the same single-season: Ozuna and Stanton.

The 59-homer, NL MVP, 8.1 WAR version of Stanton.

Yeah, woof is right. Talk about a hold my beer performance from a teammate. Ozuna did everything right in 2017. Played in 159 games. Made the All-Star team. In the NL, Ozuna was Top 5 in games played, home runs (37), RBIs (124), and total bases (336). Those home run and RBI numbers are good for third and second best respectively in Marlins franchise history. The only problem is he did so for a bad Marlins team in a year where one teammate was significantly better. Not a good combination for immortality.

Secondly, and this will become more of a talking point as this series continues, this is not a popular number in Marlins franchise history.

In another fandom age-line test of who you thought of first, it would appear that not too many Marlins players had warm memories of Dan Marino, Mike Miller, or even MLB icon Alex Rodriguez. Either that, or there has been more than a bit of superstition associated with this particular jersey. Only eleven Marlins have worn this number, period. That's not too unusual, I suppose. What is unusual though are some of the gaps.

After Dave Berg- more on him next week- gave it a whirl in 1998, no one wore this again until 2007. That's an eight year gap. Not the biggest that will appear in the series, but it is the biggest so far. No one has worn it for Miami since Sean Rodriguez did in 2020.

Consequently, the honorable mentions section for this number isn't worth too much of your time. As mentioned, Berg sported it in 1998 in a 1.2 WAR effort that looks really good on this list. Included here for no other reason than longevity, a player named Bob Natal appears to have actually not just existed, but wore No. 13 for the first five seasons in Marlins history. For those of you unsure of the math, that includes the 1997 championship season.

Last but not least, and indeed the true second best entrant here at No. 13, is Starlin Castro of the 2018 and 2019 Marlins. So I suppose there was one Alex Rodriguez fan after all. Either that, or he really didn't want to bother Martin Prado and ask for the No. 14 he had been wearing with the Yankees prior to coming over to Miami in the Stanton trade. Castro was quite solid in his Marlins career, racking up 2.9 WAR of value for two abysmal teams.

And that does it for No. 13. Catch you next time at No. 12, and a family legacy moment for the Best To Wear The Marlins Jersey Number series.