This 1 stat explains how Matt Olson regained his elite power

Matt Olson is a top 10 Iron Man in MLB history. He’s also a top five player in MLB right now.

The Braves first baseman played in his 823rd consecutive game on Sunday, surpassing Gus Suhr for sole possession of 10th place on the all-time list. For good measure, he finished off his day with his 14th homer of the season, a solo blast off the Dodgers’ Justin Wrobleski in the top of the ninth.

Here are Olson’s MLB ranks through 41 games this season:

• HR: 14, fourth most
• RBIs: 36, tied for most
• OPS: 1.031, fourth best among qualifiers
• XBH: 29, most
• Total bases: 104, most
• WAR: 2.4, tied for second most (per FanGraphs)

Olson is the second player in the Modern Era (since 1900) to record at least 14 homers and 15 doubles through 41 team games, joining Lance Berkman (2008). He’s on pace for 55 homers and 59 doubles -- Albert Belle (1995) is the only player in MLB history to record 50-plus homers and 50-plus doubles in a single season.

He’s the biggest reason the Braves have the best record in baseball this season at 28-13 (.683), and as Atlanta enters a three-game series against the red-hot Cubs (27-14) on Tuesday, he looks like a legitimate candidate to dethrone Shohei Ohtani as National League MVP.

Olson playing every day and mashing dingers is not exactly a new development. He hasn’t missed a game since 2021, and he produced a 54-homer season in ’23. However, this represents a significant step up from what he did across 2024-25. He hit 29 homers in each of those two seasons and posted a collective .820 OPS and 127 wRC+ -- good, but not elite.

Olson’s surge demands an explanation, so we went to find one. Interestingly, this version actually looks quite similar to 2024-25, with one key difference.

Is it an increase in hard contact?

No. Olson’s 52.1% hard-hit rate is higher than the 47.4% rate he posted in 2024, but lower than both ’23 (55.5%) and ’25 (53.3%) and nearly identical to his mark since the start of '22 (51.8%).

Is it more pull-side power?

No. Olson’s 35.9% pull rate is lower than 2024 (38.4%) and ’25 (36.6%), and his 19.7% pulled airball rate is right around where it usually is (20.0% since 2021).

In fact, only six of Olson’s homers have been pulled this season. The other eight have been hit either straightaway or to the opposite field.

Is it better plate discipline, or a drop in strikeouts?

No. Olson has a lifetime 23.8% strikeout rate, including a 24.1% mark since he joined the Braves in 2022. This season? It’s 24.0%. His 27.3% chase rate is also fairly typical (27.0% since 2022).

Then what is it?

It’s his fly-ball rate. That might sound like an obvious answer -- big, strong man produces more fly balls and hits more homers -- but it’s still a striking development.

Olson’s fly-ball rate has hovered between 28-31% every year of his career, with two exceptions.

Throughout his career, Olson has been quite consistent in how hard he hits the ball, how much he strikes out, even how often he produces air contact (including fly balls, line drives and popups). And considering he never misses a game, you’d think he’d have reached the 40-homer threshold more than once. But 2023 was the only time he did it.

Airball distribution is the biggest thing that has separated 30-homer Olson from 50-homer Olson. When his fly-ball rate spikes, the barrels come in bunches, and the homers follow. And boy has it spiked this year. A pair of mechanical adjustments explain why.

1. A closer contact point: Olson has been hitting the ball farther out in front of the plate -- which tends to produce more lift -- than he did over the past two seasons. His average contact point this season is 5.6 inches in front of home plate, up from 2.1 inches across 2024-25 and closer to his '23 mark (5.1 inches), even though his depth in the box is virtually unchanged.

2. Improved timing: Attack angle -- which measures the vertical direction the sweet spot of the bat is traveling at contact -- is in large part a timing metric, and hitters are much more likely to produce fly balls when they're swinging in the ideal range of 5° to 20°. Olson was in that range just 46.6% of the time from 2023-25. This season it's 55.6%.

The Iron Man streak keeps growing. The homers keep flying. And Olson might just have an MVP Award in his sights.