Braves slugger Matt Olson due for a second half explosion after disappointing start

Less than a year ago, Matt Olson cemented himself as one of the greatest power bats in Atlanta Braves history.

After a first season in 2022 that saw the tall lefty underperform relative to expectations following future Braves hall-of-fame first baseman Freddie Freeman, the then 29-year-old Georgia-born product put up the best power season in the history of the Braves.

He played all 162 games (he has yet to sit in a game as a Brave), set the single-season home run record (54), and came six RBI short of breaking Hugh Duffy's franchise RBI record of 145 set in 1894.

That kind of power doesn't just disappear after one season, but as most who have played baseball know, it's a fickle game. It's unforgiving and hasn't been all that generous to Matt Olson in 2024.

Barring injury, this will be the sixth season in the last seven that he has played over 100 games (the one he didn't was when he played just 60 games in the shortened 2020 season). Of those six seasons, his current OPS stands as the worst in his career (.737) as does his OPS+ (106). His 2024 OPS is just .3 points higher than the 2020 season.

He's on pace to not break 30 home runs for the first time since 2017 when he hit 24 in 59 games. His RBI count does not currently stand to break 100, which would end a three-year streak of reaching the number. He's hitting just .237 for the season.

A quick look at Baseball Savant and it's easy to tell why Olson is struggling. He's still in the elite percentile of MLB players in average exit velocity (91.8 mph, top 12%), bat speed (74 mph, top 18%), and hard-hit rate (46.4%, top 20%). He's only dropped 1.9 from last season in average exit velocity. However, his barrel percentage is down 6.3 points (16.4 to 10.1) from last season and 3.4 points (13.5 to 10.1) from his career average.

He's also missing the ball at a near career-high rate, as his 27.2 K% is the third-worst of his career and four points down from a season ago.

What all of this means is, he hasn't lost the power. When he makes solid contact, the ball is still traveling fast. He just isn't consistently making good contact nor is he consistently making contact at all.

Whatever adjustments need to be made, haven't been made yet. But since he's not an all-star this season, he'll get about a week's break and hopefully during that break, he can take a look at why he's making contact with the ball less than normal. And when he is making contact, why it isn't coming on the barrel?

Is it an approach thing? Is there something mechanical that he can fix in his swing and keep the bat head in the zone longer? Is there a certain pitch or a certain count he needs to work on being better in?

These are things that are being monitored throughout the season, but they oftentimes aren't easy fixes. When a player plays every day as Olson does, it's not easy to implement a solution in a single off day.

A week, however, could give Olson and Braves hitting coach Kevin Seitzer the time to try some different things in the cage, and get that barrel on the ball more.

It's something the Braves will desperately need if they wish to chase down the Phillies and win their seventh-straight NL East title.

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