Even should you’re not a Braves fan, you in all probability know the tough contours of what’s gone down for them this season. The preseason World Collection favorites have had horrid damage luck all 12 months. 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 celebs 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 help items, have given the workforce a preventing probability.
That was a superb description of the Braves for a part of the season, but it surely doesn’t seize their latest kind. Harris began the 12 months in a horrendous droop; he has a 122 wRC+ for the reason that All-Star break. Riley introduced the ability earlier than his damage. 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, bought on base at a career-best price, and performed each sport 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 top-of-the-line hitters in baseball this 12 months, and so they weren’t alone.
The other occurred, kind of. He got here out of the gates slowly, with a 93 wRC+ within the first month. That’s hardly disqualifying – numerous nice gamers have unhealthy first months. Heck, Aaron Choose began sluggish this 12 months, and he’s on his option to the very best offensive season since Barry Bonds. However in contrast to Choose, Olson didn’t pull out of his droop with a couple of weeks of impressed play. As an alternative, the doldrums lingered. A tepid Could dragged his line as much as league common; the identical remained true by means of 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 anticipate him too – with too many strikeouts and never sufficient energy. His sport 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. Practically 80% of his contact on these fastballs was 95 mph or more durable. 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 more durable final 12 months: Giancarlo Stanton, Choose, and Shohei Ohtani. I believe there’s some sign in there.
In 2024, although, Olson’s bat seemingly fell asleep. It wasn’t in the obvious of the way – his whiff price on these crushable fastballs truly declined. However he hit fewer of them within the air, hit fewer of them arduous, and bought worse outcomes. He launched 24 homers on middle-middle fastballs in 2023. On the All-Star break this 12 months, he had seven. In the meantime, his foul ball price spiked above 50%, as in comparison with the low 40s and higher 30s he’d posted all through his profession beforehand. It’s affordable to surmise that his timing was off.
If you wish to be a superb hitter, it’s important to take the straightforward wins. Loads of the pitches that you simply 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 sequence of failure that occurs right here. Fewer homers and extra foul balls imply extra early outs and likewise extra deep counts. These deep counts – and lots of of them disadvantageous, on condition that Olson was fouling off so many strikes as a substitute of placing them in play – meant loads of two-strike breaking balls. And wouldn’t it, Olson chased these on the highest price of his profession within the first half, a whopping 44.4%.
Positive, these are disadvantageous pitches for anybody – the league chase price 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 price ticked up alongside along with his chase price, and out of the blue two strike counts have been unhealthy for him as a substitute of excellent.
That’s the straightforward story of what went mistaken. A number of little edges eroded, a couple of at-bats bought extended and changed into strikeouts, and identical to that, Olson was a below-average hitter. Simple come, simple go; possibly he simply bought too outdated. So now it’s time for the reveal: Olson has a 149 wRC+ for the reason that 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 putting out much less and strolling extra. He’s barreling the ball up extra continuously and customarily seems like his fearsome 2023 self as a substitute of the rickety 2024 model.
What’s modified? On the floor, it’s simple to say: Olson’s energy is again. The whole lot else flows from that. It doesn’t should 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 more durable; his bat velocity is definitely down barely within the second half. However I’ve an affordable clarification, 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 subject. Typically he lucked into an reverse subject 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 subject energy alley, but it surely was all the time kind of up the center. Distinction that with what occurred within the first half of this 12 months:
That doesn’t seem like the identical hitter. And when you may assume this isn’t a giant deal, I believe it’s. Should you swing to hit a down-the-middle fastball out of the park to middle, you’ll doubtless be out in entrance of breaking balls and offspeed pitches; they get to house plate extra slowly, in spite of everything. What occurs should you’re a bit early out of your useless middle swing? You hit pull-side homers:
This entire chain wasn’t working early within the 12 months. Even when he was hitting fastballs, he was largely out entrance and pulling. That made his timing on every thing else borderline unworkable. Take a look at his manufacturing on secondary pitches, with this 12 months cut up out into halves. I took the freedom of highlighting the worst lead to every column in crimson:
Matt Olson vs. Secondary Pitches
| Yr | 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 fantastic; I didn’t anticipate Olson to be that good yearly. However the first half of 2024 was a transparent outlier in the other way. He bought away from the method that had labored so properly, and his outcomes took successful throughout the board. However as you’ll be able to see from his second-half numbers, he’s again to mashing breaking balls once more. In a supremely unsurprising associated improvement, his house runs on fastballs are headed out to middle:
In order that’s it, proper? Olson began making an attempt to tug the ball and bought horrible, after which he went again to hitting fastballs up the center and have become nice once more. I imply, positive, however that doesn’t inform the entire story. One factor I unnoticed on objective: Olson was getting supremely unfortunate early within the 12 months. Take balls hit 100 mph or more durable 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. Means 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. Might Olson have been constantly hitting the ball to the mistaken a part of the park, and thus “fooling” xwOBA? Not going. Should you’ll keep in mind, he was pulling too many fastballs, which gave the impression to be the basis 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 unhealthy 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. Typically 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 truly 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 out of the blue he’s placing up a median batting line. Right the timing and even out the luck, and it’ll out of the blue seem like he went from unplayable again to elite. Nevertheless it was nearly the identical Matt Olson the entire time. What a wild sport.
