Why Olson has an actual likelihood to achieve 60 residence runs

Ronald Acuña Jr. isn’t the one Braves star pursuing historical past in 2023. While Atlanta’s famous person outfielder is on the verge of the primary 30-homer, 60-steal marketing campaign in AL/NL historical past and will develop into the fifth member of the 40/40 membership, Matt Olson is marching his manner 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 residence runs on the season.

With 49 video games to play, the Atlanta native wants to achieve the seats 12 extra instances to interrupt Andruw Jones’ single-season Braves document. He wants 20 extra residence runs to develop into the seventh participant (tenth prevalence) to achieve 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 sizzling 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 season to develop into a extra full hitter.

In reality, that is fairly actually the perfect stretch of Olson’s profession, at the least 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. He’s by no means been fairly that good over every 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 a giant a part of the Olson package deal for a lot of his profession. The first baseman has had just one season by which he posted a strikeout charge beneath 24% — he recorded a 16.8% Ok-rate in 2021, his closing season with the A’s, however that stands as an enormous outlier in comparison with the remainder of his profession.

Olson’s Ok-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 Ok-rate has plummeted to simply 18.7% since June 15. Outside of 2021, his 21.4% Ok-rate in July was one of many lowest he is recorded in a calendar month, and he is began off August by hanging out solely six instances in 42 PAs (14.3% Ok-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 Ok-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 implies there have been fewer alternatives for the slugger to strike out.

Making higher swing choices 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 sort, 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 harm Olson can do when he places the ball in play, any improve involved amount is a giant deal for the veteran, particularly on pitches within the strike zone that he can drive out of the park.

His latest 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 residence 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 look like Olson had a lot room for enchancment right here, contemplating he was already among the many MLB leaders in producing exhausting 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 whenever you issue within the improve involved amount stemming from his drop in Ok-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% by means of 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% by means of 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 .398 xwOBA on the yr, the tenth finest amongst qualifiers, which reveals what an elite hitter he is develop 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 3 times earlier than this yr.

He’s additionally had some brushes with the higher tier of massive 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 is no disputing that he is one of many high hitters within the sport, with an actual likelihood to achieve the hallowed 60 residence run plateau.

Mark Bowman contributed reporting to this story.