Matt Olson is having a generational run of first base defense this season

Atlanta's big first baseman is putting on a defensive clinic at the cold corner

Matt Olson won two consecutive Gold Gloves during his time in Oakland, in 2018 and 2019.

Now that Christian Walker, formerly of the Arizona Diamondbacks, has left the National League for Houston, this year could be the start of a new run of Gold Gloves for Olson in Atlanta.

He’s not only leading all first basemen in Outs Above Average at +4, he has a top 30 mark for any position in baseball. His Defensive Runs Saved number is even more impressive at +12, sitting seven above the next closest first baseman (Spencer Steer at +5) and second only to Taylor Walls of the Tampa Bay Rays for the best mark in MLB.

But how is he doing it? Let’s talk about it.

We’re going to focus on OAA

I’m going to be honest: All defensive metrics are black boxes. No one really knows how they work and the fact that they measure different things doesn’t really help matters.

(OAA measures Outs and is highly based on range. DRS measures runs and is based on outliers - credit for making the tough plays and significant penalties for not making the routine plays.)

But because OAA is part of Statcast and they make all their data public, we’re going to dive into that despite Olson’s DRS performance being significantly better than the rest of baseball.

Olson’s excellence in OAA seems to stem from three different areas:

Charging batted balls in front of him
Work around the bag
Chasing pop flies into foul territory

Let’s break it down.

Charging batted balls

There’s one play that really stands out to me here when I think about this.

Let’s go back to the four-game series against the Reds in Truist Park. Matt Olson’s become uber-aggressive at charging bunts, none more so than this misguided attempt from since-demoted Blake Dunn:

(Special credit to Drake Baldwin for directing Olson to third with an audible “3”)

Olson’s earned +3 OAA on charging balls in front of him, both bunt attempts and soft rollers up the line that he gets and takes to the bag himself.

A lot of these ‘moving in’ plays outside of the bunts don’t look that impressive, and that’s because Olson plays so deep. This is really hard to quantify because first base positioning is drastically different whether or not they’re holding a runner on the bag.

But here’s an example of why Olson plays deep - CJ Abrams smokes this ball but Olson’s able to pick it on one hop and beat Abrams to the bag.

And the other reason he’s playing deep is so that he can go out and get balls in foul territory.

He plays short right field at times

Something I’ve noticed about Olson’s fly ball tracking in foul territory is that he excels at leaving himself in a position to make a play.

Check out this Brenton Doyle pop-up in Coors Field and tell me what you notice:

To me, he runs towards the wall, staying behind the ball so it’s easier to see in front of him, and then angles up and runs alongside the wall (to avoid a collision) before extending and catching the ball away from his body, thereby maintaining visibility on the ball.

Here’s another one, this one in Truist Park from over the weekend. Watch how the glove extends out from his body as the ball passes over his head - he’s trying to keep as wide of an angle between the ball, his glove, and his eyes to preserve sight of the ball all the way down.

There have been nine total putouts by first basemen in MLB this year that were 190 feet or farther from home plate. Four of those nine were from Matt Olson.

Work around the bag

Most big league first basemen are good at scooping balls in the dirt. It’s incredibly hard to find detailed stats on this - trust me, I looked - but Olson’s rarely in a bad position on these. When you combine his actions with his 6’4 height and wingspan, he seldom misses.

Here’s one from just last night against Philly, where Nick Castellanos sent a hard bouncer down the third base line that took Austin Riley into foul territory to corral it.

That short hop is one of the hardest for a first baseman to make¹, but it’s just a routine play for Olson.

What’s the record for a first baseman?

One’s obtainable, one probably isn’t.

The OAA record in the Statcast era, minimum 1000 innings at the position, is Christian Walker’s +11 in both 2019 and 2022, shared with Carlos Santana of the 2024 Minnesota Twins.

The only other double-digit OAA seasons? Christian Walker’s +10 in 2024 and Freddie Freeman’s +10 in 2016.

Again, Olson’s at +4 through just one-third of the season. He can absolutely do this.

The DRS record is tougher, belonging to another incredibly aggressive first base defender: Albert Pujols, who had 31 DRS in 2007. While it feels like Olson’s +12 in one-third of the season should translate to a +36 number, it’s important to note that DRS is highly dependent on making the tough plays, avoiding the bad mistakes, and getting as many opportunities as possible. That season, the Cardinals’ pitching staff ran a roughly 15% strikeout rate, while Atlanta is sitting around 23% this year. If you told me that Olson got one of these two records, I’d assume it’s the range-based OAA one versus the volume-based DRS one.

But either way, I’m glad he’s doing it for us.

1. Especially if the grounds crew isn’t taking care of the dirt around the bag /s