Why Olson has a real chance to reach 60 home runs

Ronald Acuña Jr. isn’t the one Braves star pursuing historical past in 2023. While Atlanta’s celebrity outfielder is on the verge of the primary 30-homer, 60-steal marketing campaign in AL/NL historical past and will change into the fifth member of the 40/40 membership, Matt Olson is marching his means towards a historic season of his personal, one monstrous homer at a time.

Olson went deep once more Thursday in opposition to the Pirates and is now tied with Shohei Ohtani for the MLB lead with 40 dwelling runs on the season.

With 49 video games to play, the Atlanta native wants to succeed in the seats 12 extra instances to interrupt Andruw Jones’ single-season Braves document. He wants 20 extra dwelling runs to change into the seventh participant (tenth incidence) to succeed in the 60-homer plateau.

If that looks as if a tall job, take into account that Olson has crushed 22 homers in his previous 45 video games.

His unimaginable .327/.419/.792 slash in that span dwarfs the .228/.347/.483 line he put up over his first 68 video games this season, in addition to the .240/.325/.477 slash he posted in his first season with the Braves.

Is this merely an prolonged scorching streak for a participant who has at all times proven immense energy potential? Maybe. But the underlying numbers recommend in any other case.

Olson might by no means be Freddie Freeman, the person who preceded him as Atlanta’s beginning first baseman and has continued raking in Los Angeles, however he’s made significant strides this summer time to change into a extra full hitter.

In reality, that is fairly actually one of the best stretch of Olson’s profession, no less than by way of anticipated wOBA, a Statcast metric based mostly on high quality of contact, K’s and BB’s.

As the graph beneath reveals, Olson’s rolling xwOBA common per 200 plate appearances reached a private excessive of .445 on Aug. 6 and once more on Aug. 9. He’s by no means been fairly that good over some other 200-PA span in his profession.

Here’s a have a look at the 2 key components fueling this surge and placing Olson on a path towards baseball historical past.

Strikeouts have been an enormous a part of the Olson bundle for a lot of his profession. The first baseman has had just one season wherein he posted a strikeout charge beneath 24% — he recorded a 16.8% Okay-rate in 2021, his ultimate season with the A’s, however that stands as an enormous outlier in comparison with the remainder of his profession.

Olson’s Okay-rate spiked again as much as 24.3% final yr, and he went down on strikes in almost 30% of his PAs over his first 68 video games this season.

However, his Okay-rate has plummeted to simply 18.7% since June 15. Outside of 2021, his 21.4% Okay-rate in July was one of many lowest he is recorded in a calendar month, and he is began off August by placing out solely six instances in 42 PAs (14.3% Okay-rate).

“I feel like it’s a product of putting the ball in play earlier in the count,” Olson mentioned Wednesday when requested why he thinks his Okay-rate is down just lately. “I feel like my two-strike approach is the same as it’s always been. Nothing has changed there, but I’m getting into fewer two-strike counts.”

Indeed, Olson has gotten to 2 strikes in 104 of his 198 PAs (52.5%) since June 15, in comparison with 191 of 308 (62%) beforehand, which suggests there have been fewer alternatives for the slugger to strike out.

Making higher swing selections has helped: He’s been chasing much less on pitches out of the zone and providing extra at in-zone pitches. Perhaps extra importantly, although, he has been lacking far much less on these in-zone swings.

Olson entered 2023 with a profession whiff charge (misses/swings) over 23% on pitches thrown within the strike zone and whiffed at a 29% clip on these pitches previous to June 15. But in his previous 44 video games, he has lowered that mark to 16.9%. His strikeout charge in PAs ending on in-zone pitches has dropped in form, falling from 27.9% over his first 68 video games this season to simply 16.4% since June 15.

That’s not fairly Luis Arraez territory, however it’s clearly a dramatic enchancment. And contemplating the injury Olson can do when he places the ball in play, any enhance involved amount is an enormous deal for the veteran, particularly on pitches within the strike zone that he can drive out of the park.

His current outcomes bear this out.

While Olson ranked twentieth within the Majors with a .617 SLG on in-zone pitches a yr in the past and tied for the Twenty fourth-highest mark (.628) over his first 68 video games this season, he’s slugging .896 (together with 19 dwelling runs) on in-zone pitches since June 15, MLB’s second-highest determine throughout that span.

Highest SLG on in-zone pitches, since June 15
Min. 100 PAs ending on in-zone pitches

It didn’t seem to be Olson had a lot room for enchancment right here, contemplating he was already among the many MLB leaders in producing arduous contact (95+ mph exit velocity) and barrels (batted balls with the optimum mixture of exit velocity and launch angle) previous to June 15.

Somehow, although, the left-handed slugger has discovered one other gear within the hard-hit charge enviornment, posting a 60.9% hard-hit charge since June 15 after recording a 55.4% determine over his first 68 video games.

Meanwhile, his barrel charge has solely dipped barely, going from 19% to 18.8%. But while you issue within the enhance involved amount stemming from his drop in Okay-rate, he is been producing extra barrels on a per-plate-appearance foundation than he was earlier than. Over his previous 44 video games, 12.6% of his plate appearances have ended with a barrel, up from 10.4% via June 14 and eight.4% previous to 2023.

Similarly, 40.9% of his PAs since June 15 have ended with a hard-hit ball, up from 30.2% via June 14 and 31.7% previous to this season.

Add all of it up and Olson has a .448 xwOBA since June 15, the second highest in MLB (min. 150 PAs) behind Ohtani’s .486. He now has a career-high .399 xwOBA on the yr, tied for the ninth greatest amongst qualifiers, which reveals what an elite hitter he is change into. His OPS+ is 156, 56% higher than league common and the fifth highest amongst qualifiers.

Again, Olson’s energy potential has by no means been in query. He burst onto the scene with 24 homers in simply 59 video games as a rookie in 2017 and reached the 30-mark thrice earlier than this yr.

He’s additionally had some brushes with the higher tier of huge league hitters earlier than, like when he ranked sixth in MLB with a 153 OPS+ in 2021. That mentioned, he hasn’t been capable of maintain it over a number of years but. Believe it or not, he nonetheless hasn’t produced consecutive seasons with an OPS+ of 120 or greater. Compare that to Freeman, who has recorded an OPS+ of 132 or greater in each season courting again to 2013.

No matter how this season ends, Olson might want to show he can do it once more in 2024 and past. But at this very second, there isn’t any disputing that he is one of many high hitters within the recreation, with an actual probability to succeed in the hallowed 60 dwelling run plateau.

Mark Bowman contributed reporting to this story.