Braves May Be Getting Best Run From Matt Olson Yet

It’s been business as usual for Atlanta Braves first baseman Matt Olson. His 441-foot home run to drive in two of the 11 runs scored against the Cleveland Guardians was nothing out of the ordinary.

With the home run, he now has 10 extra-base hits. That put him in a three-way tie with San Francisco Giants shortstop Willy Adames and Baltimore Orioles outfielder Taylor Ward for the most in the major leagues.

Again, that’s not too surprising, given that he led the National League in doubles last season (41) and had 72 total extra-base hits.

However, with the way he’s been heating up as of late, there’s a chance the Braves could be seeing the best of him yet. He’s in a position to put up similar numbers to the ones he did during his 2023 season, which had a performance worthy of a fourth-place finish in the National League MVP voting.

So, just to be clear, he’s not quite at the 2023 pace yet. But he’s getting there. Here are some of his key stats side by side from 2023 and 2026.

2023: .283 avg., .604 slug., .993 OPS
2026: .278 avg., .611 slug., .982 OPS

His slugging this season is a bit better than where he finished in 2023, when it led the National League. It’s early in the year. A multi-hit game with a home run would put his current batting average and OPS ahead.

Now, some counting stats need some catching up to do if they want to pass the 2023 marks, but they’d still result in Olson’s second-best season. He’s on pace for 46 home runs and 115 RBIs. For comparison, he finished with 54 home runs and 139 RBIs in 2023.

So, 2023 mostly has this season beat when it comes to pace, but there is one stat that, if he keeps up this pace, would shatter his career-best. Let’s circle back to the 10 extra-base hits that lead baseball for a moment. At this pace, he would finish with 112. He had 84 in 2023, which was the second-most in baseball.

That would be difficult to keep up. Only two players in MLB history have finished with at least 110 extra-base hits in a season: Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Fifteen have ever had at least 100. Most of those who have done it played in the first half of the 20th century. Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani both reached 90 recently.

So, this pace is more than likely to be unsustainable, barring history being made. However, challenging his career high of 84 extra-base hits could be doable.

Even this season has already shown that Olson can have his share of highs and lows. In the first six games of the season, he had a season-long pace of 54 extra-base hits and no home runs and 54 RBIs. In the latter eight games, he would have 162 extra-base hits and 162 RBIs over 162 games.

It’s a long season. But when Olson sees the ball well, he sees it better than nearly anyone in the game. In time, we’ll see where his pace averages out to. But he’s having a start that the team would have loved from him the last two seasons. Might as well see how long he can keep this up.