Braves Matt Olson is the unluckiest player in MLB so far this season

Ronald Acuña Jr. stole the show and won the NL MVP Award, deservingly so, but the season Matt Olson had for the Atlanta Braves in 2023 cannot be ignored. The 30-year-old set a Braves franchise record and led the NL with 54 home runs. His 139 RBI were second in Braves history and also led the NL. He would've won the MVP award in many other seasons.

Fast forward to 2024, and this is not the same hitter. Olson enters play on Tuesday slashing .197/.317/.359 with three home runs and 16 RBI. He has gone 105 plate appearances since hitting his last home run on April 7. The Braves offense as a whole has struggled with Olson right in the middle of it.

As concerning as the numbers look, there's reason to believe he'll eventually break out of his slump. Not only is his track record extraordinary, but a deep dive into his advanced stats for this season would suggest that he has gotten incredibly unlucky.

Eventually, the bad luck will turn around for Matt Olson

As you can see, Olson is still hitting the ball incredibly hard, ranking in the 99th percentile in average exit velocity and hard-hit rate. He's walking at a high rate and as this X user points out, his whiff-rate is the second lowest in his career. He has also been limiting chases. He's swinging at good pitches, making more contact that normal, hitting the ball hard, and still can't find any luck.

Part of Olson's issue is a decrease in fly balls. His 30.1 FB% is over 4% lower than last season's mark of 34.4%. Instead of his hard-hit balls being fly balls, his line drive rate has skyrocketed from 20.9% last season to 27.7% this season. While line drives are better than ground balls, his line drives are finding gloves. His fly balls would be getting into the seats since he's still hitting the ball hard.

Olson has just a .250 BAbip which is 50 points below the league average of .300. He's historically had low BAbip's because of shifts, but last season, when the shift was removed, he had a .302 BAbip. Eventually, the luck there will turn and his line drives will either get elevated into fly balls and leave the yard or stop finding gloves.

There are things to be concerned about with the Braves, but Olson is not one of them. His brutal start can be chalked up to bad luck more than anything.