Will the Atlanta Braves fare better with Matt Olson as first baseman this season?
When Matt Olson was traded to the Atlanta Braves, the reigning World Series Champions shocked the baseball world.
The trade with the Oakland A's sent four prospects (including two former first-round picks) to the West Coast ending Freddie Freeman's tenure with the Braves.
Not only does Atlanta have a new 1B in Matt Olson, it’s going to have him for a long, long time. Olson and the Braves have agreed on an eight-year, $168 million contract extension, sources tell ESPN. Atlanta locks up the hometown kid two years before he was due to hit the market.
How Matt Olson could benefit Atlanta Braves
The Braves believe Olson gives them the best chance at succeeding in the future. There is validity in the debate over which first baseman would have been the better option for Atlanta in the short term.
The main question is: does Matt Olson gives the Braves a better chance at defending their title than Freddie Freeman?
Matt Olson’s 2021:
39 HR, 111 RBI, .911 OPS, 5.8 bWAR
Freddie Freeman’s 2021:
31 HR, 83 RBI, .896 OPS, 4.7 bWAR
A lot of people won’t be happy, but Matt Olson was better than Freddie Freeman in 2021. This is a huge addition to the lineup! #Braves
According to Fangraphs, Olson stands to produce a 4.6 Wins Above Replacement in the 2022 season with the Atlanta Braves.
On the other side of the transaction, Freeman will begin his 2022 season as a newly annointed member of the Los Angeles Dodgers. For the 2022 campaign, Fangraphs is projecting Freeman to edge out Olson in the slightest of metrics, with 4.7 Wins Above Replacement.
While a notably reliable data prediction platform, there are a number of factors going into the season that can produce significant variances in the production each player could create with their new team. The most notable would be where each player would bat in home games.
Both players could play a significant amount of games in new stadiums. Baseball is incredibly unique in the fact that each team is able to tailor the dimensions of their ballparks to highlight features deemed desireable in their rosters.
For Matt Olson, he will be moving from the Oakland Colliseum, one of the most difficult parks for a hitter to perform in, to Sun Trust Park. Although the home of the Atlanta Braves is still fairly new in terms of data collection, it is considered one of the more hitter-friendly parks in the league.
For Freeman, the disparity in offensive output for players between Sun Trust Park to Dodgers Stadium is notably lesser. In this instance, Matt Olson is clearly the beneficiary in terms of change of scenery. If he is able to take advantage of his new ballpark, the Braves stand to perform at an even higher level than they did in 2021.