Even in the event you’re not a Braves fan, you most likely know the tough contours of what’s gone down for them this season. The preseason World Collection favorites have had horrid harm luck all yr. The reigning MVP, Ronald Acuña Jr., scuffled for 50 video games earlier than tearing his ACL. Spencer Strider blew out his elbow. Austin Riley broke his hand, Ozzie Albies and Sean Murphy every missed two months, Michael Harris II has been banged up; you’ve heard all of it earlier than. And the celebrities who’ve been round haven’t performed as much as their potential. Solely Chris Sale and Marcell Ozuna, two past-their-prime retreads the Braves anticipated to be assist items, have given the workforce a combating probability.
That was a great description of the Braves for a part of the season, however it doesn’t seize their current type. Harris began the yr in a horrendous droop; he has a 122 wRC+ because the All-Star break. Riley introduced the facility earlier than his harm. Jorge Soler has been a pleasant addition. However maybe most significantly, Matt Olson is again.
Olson put up the very best season of his profession in 2023, and it wasn’t notably shut. He launched 54 homers, acquired on base at a career-best fee, and performed each recreation en path to a gaudy 6.6 WAR. He completed fourth in MVP voting, his first top-five end, and led the majors in homers and RBI. Our projections thought he’d be among the finest hitters in baseball this yr, they usually weren’t alone.
The alternative occurred, roughly. He got here out of the gates slowly, with a 93 wRC+ within the first month. That’s hardly disqualifying – a number of nice gamers have dangerous first months. Heck, Aaron Decide began sluggish this yr, and he’s on his strategy to the very best offensive season since Barry Bonds. However in contrast to Decide, Olson didn’t pull out of his droop with a couple of weeks of impressed play. As a substitute, the doldrums lingered. A tepid Might dragged his line as much as league common; the identical remained true by June. He slumped arduous heading into the All-Star break after which went 0-16 in his first 4 video games out of it.
The worst half about this droop is that it felt all too explainable. How does Olson droop? Precisely the way you’d count on him too – with too many strikeouts and never sufficient energy. His recreation is about discovering a pitch to hit and sending it into the seats. What’s the very best pitch to do this on? A fastball proper down the center.
Wouldn’t it, in 2023 Olson completely feasted on fastballs down the center. Almost 80% of his contact on these fastballs was 95 mph or tougher. He barreled up roughly 21% of them. His common – common! – exit velocity when he made contact with a fastball over the center of the plate was 100.8 mph. I don’t all the time love common exit velocity as a stat, however three batters hit their middle-middle fastballs tougher final yr: Giancarlo Stanton, Decide, and Shohei Ohtani. I feel there’s some sign in there.
In 2024, although, Olson’s bat seemingly fell asleep. It wasn’t in the obvious of how – his whiff fee on these crushable fastballs really declined. However he hit fewer of them within the air, hit fewer of them arduous, and acquired worse outcomes. He launched 24 homers on middle-middle fastballs in 2023. On the All-Star break this yr, he had seven. In the meantime, his foul ball fee spiked above 50%, as in comparison with the low 40s and higher 30s he’d posted all through his profession beforehand. It’s cheap to surmise that his timing was off.
If you wish to be a great hitter, you must take the straightforward wins. Loads of the pitches that you just see in each at-bat are going to be filthy, reality-warping sliders that slice off the periphery, or 100 mph fastballs that hug the highest of the zone. There’s no revenue available in setting your sights on these pitches. Positive, good hitters do higher on them, as a result of good hitters are simply higher. However everyone seems to be at their finest once they get simpler pitches to hit, and Olson was failing at that a part of the job.
There’s a series of failure that occurs right here. Fewer homers and extra foul balls imply extra early outs and in addition extra deep counts. These deep counts – and lots of of them disadvantageous, on condition that Olson was fouling off so many strikes as an alternative of placing them in play – meant loads of two-strike breaking balls. And wouldn’t it, Olson chased these on the highest fee of his profession within the first half, a whopping 44.4%.
Positive, these are disadvantageous pitches for anybody – the league chase fee in that spot is 40% – however Olson used to win in these conditions by taking typically sufficient to maintain pitchers trustworthy, then hitting for energy once they got here again within the zone. The little edges matter; his whiff fee ticked up alongside together with his chase fee, and instantly two strike counts have been dangerous for him as an alternative of excellent.
That’s the straightforward story of what went improper. A couple of little edges eroded, a couple of at-bats acquired extended and changed into strikeouts, and identical to that, Olson was a below-average hitter. Straightforward come, straightforward go; perhaps he simply acquired too outdated. So now it’s time for the reveal: Olson has a 149 wRC+ because the All-Star break. He’s hit 16 homers in 61 video games in that stretch, up from solely 13 in his first 95. He’s hanging out much less and strolling extra. He’s barreling the ball up extra regularly and usually appears to be like like his fearsome 2023 self as an alternative of the rickety 2024 model.
What’s modified? On the floor, it’s straightforward to say: Olson’s energy is again. All the things else flows from that. It doesn’t need to be difficult; he had a .176 ISO earlier than the break and has a .284 mark since. However how did he do it? He didn’t begin swinging tougher; his bat pace is definitely down barely within the second half. However I’ve an inexpensive rationalization, and it begins with these middle-middle fastballs.
Right here’s a twig chart of the place he hit them in 2023:
That is what you need from a man with plus uncooked energy. Olson’s swing is geared to torch these balls out to middle area. Generally he lucked into an reverse area shot when he was late. He pulled a pair down the road. Principally, although, his manufacturing on these most hittable pitches was all about hitting the ball arduous and to middle. In a few of his different finest years, his energy got here to the precise area energy alley, however it was all the time roughly up the center. Distinction that with what occurred within the first half of this yr:
That doesn’t seem like the identical hitter. And whilst you would possibly suppose this isn’t a giant deal, I feel it’s. In the event you swing to hit a down-the-middle fastball out of the park to middle, you’ll possible be out in entrance of breaking balls and offspeed pitches; they get to dwelling plate extra slowly, in spite of everything. What occurs in the event you’re a bit of early out of your useless middle swing? You hit pull-side homers:
This entire chain wasn’t working early within the yr. Even when he was hitting fastballs, he was largely out entrance and pulling. That made his timing on every part else borderline unworkable. Take a look at his manufacturing on secondary pitches, with this yr cut up out into halves. I took the freedom of highlighting the worst lead to every column in purple:
Matt Olson vs. Secondary Pitches
| 12 months | Whiff% | Barrel% | HardHit% | HR/Contact |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 32.1% | 16.4% | 48.4% | 8.8% |
| 2019 | 28.5% | 15.5% | 45.7% | 9.9% |
| 2020 | 26.9% | 9.8% | 44.3% | 8.1% |
| 2021 | 26.9% | 10.9% | 43.2% | 7.6% |
| 2022 | 30.0% | 12.1% | 47.5% | 7.6% |
| 2023 | 30.6% | 18.4% | 44.7% | 13.2% |
| 2024, H1 | 33.9% | 4.5% | 31.8% | 4.5% |
| 2024, H2 | 29.0% | 13.7% | 39.7% | 6.8% |
Now, that does make 2023 seem like fairly the outlier, however that’s nice; I didn’t count on Olson to be that good yearly. However the first half of 2024 was a transparent outlier in the wrong way. He acquired away from the method that had labored so properly, and his outcomes took a success throughout the board. However as you may see from his second-half numbers, he’s again to mashing breaking balls once more. In a supremely unsurprising associated growth, his dwelling runs on fastballs are headed out to middle:
In order that’s it, proper? Olson began making an attempt to tug the ball and acquired horrible, after which he went again to hitting fastballs up the center and have become nice once more. I imply, certain, however that doesn’t inform the entire story. One factor I overlooked on objective: Olson was getting supremely unfortunate early within the yr. Take balls hit 100 mph or tougher within the air, for instance. Within the final 4 years mixed, he hit .748 with a 2.072 slug on these. He posted a 1.132 wOBA. Within the first half, he was all the way down to .626 with a 1.455 slug, good for a .859 wOBA. Method worse! However his xwOBA declined from 1.077 to .978, a far much less extreme drop. He misplaced about 300 factors of wOBA and 100 of xwOBA.
After all, xwOBA doesn’t take horizontal (“spray”) angle into consideration, solely how arduous the ball was hit and at what vertical angle. May Olson have been persistently hitting the ball to the improper a part of the park, and thus “fooling” xwOBA? Not going. In the event you’ll bear in mind, he was pulling too many fastballs, which gave the impression to be the foundation of his points. Pulled balls within the air are likely to outperform xwOBA as a result of the fences are nearer within the corners. Olson simply caught some dangerous breaks. Within the first half of the season, Francisco Lindor led baseball in 100-mph-plus line drives that have been caught by infielders, with six; Olson was second with 5. They’ve two apiece since then. Generally you’re simply snakebitten for a month or two.
The purpose of that is that the query of whether or not Olson was getting unfortunate or slumping isn’t really a binary. It was each. I can’t let you know precisely why Olson misplaced his timing. Hitting is extremely difficult, and any variety of changes or counter-adjustments might have knocked issues off kilter. However mix that misplaced timing with a couple of scorched outs, and instantly he’s placing up a median batting line. Appropriate the timing and even out the luck, and it’ll instantly seem like he went from unplayable again to elite. But it surely was virtually the identical Matt Olson the entire time. What a wild sport.