While Braves fans haven’t had a ton of positive moments to cheer for during the 2025 season, Sunday offered them a bit of a reprieve when it was announced that Chris Sale and Matt Olson were named to the 2025 National League All-Star team.
And while the award is undoubtedly a great honor for Olson and Sale, who will now get to show out alongside Ronald Acuña Jr. at their hometown All-Star Game, it’s still crazy to think that Olson has a chance to be better in the second half of the season.
Matt Olson has really turned things around in 2025 except for one key flaw
First off, it’s worth pointing out that Olson has been really, really good this season. He entered play on Monday slashing .267/.368/.489 with 17 home runs and 58 RBI across 89 games while also being worth eight Outs Above Average. His wRC+ of 138 is tied for fifth among first baseman. But there’s still a way for him to get better.
After slugging 12 home runs across the first two months of the season, Olson has only hit five longballs since the start of June. A fine number of home runs, but not the kind of power output that Braves fans are used to seeing out of him.
That mild power outage has been a storyline around Olson for a good portion of the past 16 months. After Olson slugged an MLB-leading 54 home runs in 2023 en route to a fourth-place MVP finish, he only hit 29 home runs last year. Which, again, is a solid output. Most MLB hitters would kill to hit 29 home runs in a season. But Olson isn’t most MLB hitters.
He’s been one of the best hitters in baseball since he made his MLB debut with the Athletics, and he’s been a cornerstone of Atlanta’s lineup since 2022. But his power output also hasn’t been the same.
While his hard-hit rate is exactly the same as it was in 2023 (55.5%), his launch angle this year is 14.2 degrees compared to the 16.1 degree mark it was at from 2022 to ‘24.
So he’s still hitting the ball hard, it’s just at less of a “home run” angle, which could be a reason why he’s already slugged 23 doubles this year after only hitting 27 across all of his 2023 campaign.
That lack of power hasn’t stopped his overall production, however. In fact, he posted a .313 batting average in May (the sixth-bet monthly batting average he’s posted in his career) and currently has a .348 batting average through six July games.
Matt Olson's 17th tank of the year ties it for the @Braves! pic.twitter.com/i0iiOlSdrO
— MLB (@MLB) July 5, 2025
Whether it’s a conscious decision or not, it seems like Olson is sacrificing a bit of his power for his average. It remains to be seen if that’s a conscious decision or not, but it’s one that could end up helping the Braves in the long run.
Although it would be great to see Olson clear the 50-home runs plateau in the remaining four years of his contract with the Braves, imagine a Braves lineup that has him hitting .300 with 30 home runs.
The Braves may have a lot of problems right now, but Matt Olson isn’t one of them.