BACK IN THE SWING
Struggles in 2020 motivated Olson to improve, and now he’s an All-Star
Of course Matt Olson gets frustrated. But rarely does he show it.
So it was a strange sight when, over the course of a dismal 2020 season, Olson slammed his helmet to the dirt after a strikeout or threw his bat into the rack after failing to get a runner in. Typically confident and cool under pressure, it was clear Olson couldn’t find any answers in that 60-game season. He batted .195 and his strikeout rate skyrocketed. It got under his skin and festered as the numbers worsened.
Now he prepares to embark on his first trip to the MLB AllStar Game, and he warmed up for his appearance in the Home Run Derby tonight by blasting two home runs in the A’s 4-1 win over the Texas Rangers on Sunday, Olson can thank that 2020 low for a new 2021 high.
“I look back at 2020, and in a way I’m thankful it happened,” Olson said. “Failure is the best teacher. When I was done with the season I had to address things. It made me work my ass off. I felt like if that bad year doesn’t happen, maybe I’m not in this spot right now where I feel like I learned more about myself and my swing.”
Olson has two Gold Gloves on his mantel, but it’s his his sweet left-handed swing he had to perfect again to get to Denver.
The swing: Back then
If Zack Olson, Matt’s older brother, recalls correctly, posters of Atlanta Braves star Chipper Jones and Ken Griffey Jr.,
lined Matt’s bedroom walls. Any baseball-obsessed kid growing up in the late 1990s and 2000s idolized Griffey Jr. But Jones, a fellow lefthanded swinger playing for his favorite team, was his guy.
“I feel like the smooth, calm swings of Griffey and Chipper played into — whether I knew it or not — how my swing developed,” Olson said. “It was tough to watch those guys and not want to model my stuff after them and be like them.”
Matt took that swing to the Olson family’s backyard in Lilburn, a town 20 miles southwest of Atlanta, for games of Wiffle ball with his brother. Zack played the part of Greg Maddux — the Hall of Fame pitcher who made up for lack of velocity with pinpoint command — and Matt played Jones, with a dash of Griffey. But something stood out to Zack about Matt’s Wiffle ball attack; starting from age 4, the Jones impression wasn’t far off.
“I remember vividly being in the front yard playing Wiffle ball. Matt must be 3 or 4 and, no joke, we’re in the front yard and he’s literally hitting Wiffle balls over the house,” Zack said. “I didn’t have any perspective at the time but I thought, ‘Man this is not normal.’ ”
That swing impressed Olson’s coaches at Parkview High School, where he hit nine home runs in his first 14 at-bats for the varsity team as a freshman. It captivated Matt Ranson, then an Oakland A’s area scout who saw Olson as a 17-yearold playing for an East Coast showcase team. Ranson wanted Olson as one of the A’s three 2012 firstround picks.
“The thing with Matt that was always intriguing was his raw power and ability to hit, but also the calmness with which he played,” Ranson said. “He always had that element to his game, even as an 18-yearold.”
The swing caught the eye of A’s current assistant batting coach Eric Martins the first time Olson took batting practice following the draft.
“I thought, ‘This is a really, really good swing,’ ” Martins said. “It’s effortless and smooth.”
His swing: The signature
Once Olson entered the A’s minor-league system, that effortless swing had to change. Olson’s hands were up tight near his shoulder and he was swinging around his body. Trying to crack the big league team at age 22 in 2016, Olson got a
dose of reality from A’s hitting coach Darren Bush: Change your swing or get exploited.
Toying with a change in the cages, Olson stuck his bat out in front of his body in his stance and played pepper with the pitching machine. His timing was sharper, and he could maintain his power.
“That doesn’t feel that bad,” he said. Olson sent video of his new, odd stance to Martins.
“At first when I looked at it, it’s like, ‘What is this?’” said Martins, who observed the swing a little closer. “Take away what it looks like, as the swing gets into the zone it looks really good.”
Martins has an intimate relationship with Olson’s swing. He was Olson’s hitting coach for the Midland RockHounds in 2015, then for Triple-A Nashville in 2016. They diverged when Olson rose to the big leagues until Martins joined the A’s as assistant hitting coach in 2020.
With Martins and Bush, Olson’s refined the towering batting stance into a force. After wiping out the one he grew up with, it took hours of trial and error to nail the timing. He finally saw success with it in the 2017 season when Olson hit 24 home runs in 59 games with the A’s.
“Confidence is a hell of a thing, once I had that good year with my hands out, I didn’t really look back,” Olson said.
The swing: Now
In 2020, Olson’s confidence took a hit and his calm demeanor melted when opposing pitchers found holes in his swing and Olson couldn’t find fixes quick enough within the short season. Pitches he thought he was all over fell under his bat and his barrel rate tumbled. His .195 average ranked as the sixth-lowest among everyday players and his 32 percent strikeout rate was in the bottom eight percentile.
“I don’t feel like I handled it well at all last year,” Olson said. “Times where I was pouting around, slamming stuff, which doesn’t help you be a better baseball player. The best way to play better is to flush it and move on and not let two bad at-bats turn into 10 bad at-bats.
“A lot of that is mental. It was a little uncharacteristic of me, but sometimes you have to go through that stuff to truly learn from it. Looking back, that was something I wanted to address. I didn’t think I was playing the right way or acting the right way on the field.”
Olson turned to a little red machine, costing no more than $100, that infielder Tommy La Stella
brought with him from the Los Angeles Angels when the A’s traded for him in mid-2020. The machine spits out rubber, dimpled baseball-sized balls that simulate high spin rates. Getting jammed on a rubber ball didn’t hurt like it would on a standard machine, so Olson could go to his game swing every time without concern. Olson found he was starting to stay through the zone longer.
“He knows the holes they were attacking last year,” Martins said. “So he was able to work in the offseason entering the zone a little better, being able to cover the top of the zone and having a better angle and approach into the hitting zone.”
His approach stuck into spring training, and from there is confidence began to blossom again. Asked how he’d consult his pitching staff to attack Olson, A’s pitching coach Scott Emerson said: “Try to get him before he gets off the bus.”
“It’s great to work on stuff in the offseason and come out and not feel like you change it right away because you’re not doing well when spring training starts,” Olson said. “Confidence is a hell of a thing, and pretty much right away I felt good in the box, and I wanted to keep that feel as long as possible.”
An ability to stay through the zone not only covered the holes in his swing, but improved his bat path to a point where he can think one step ahead of pitchers. While Olson used to wait for a pitch he could pull for power, now he’s happy to shoot the outside pitch the other way and beat heavy shifts. As a result, his batting average is .282 and his OPS is .918. He sliced his strikeout rate in half, to 17 percent.
“That’s probably the main thing he’s worked on this year,” Martins said. “It’s cut down his strikeouts, allowed him to foul some pitches off and get deeper into counts and hit some mistakes, and they can’t attack him in the way they used to.”
Olson hit his 22nd and 23rd home runs of the season on Sunday, fourthmost in the American League. He’ll participate in the Home Run Derby today with Martins pitching to him from behind the Lscreen — and who better to throw to him than the hitting coach who saw him take his first batting practice at the Oakland Coliseum, and who’s thrown batting practice to Olson almost every year since?
“I’m glad people are going to get to see him at the All-Star Game,” Martins said. “Because it’s one of the prettiest swings.”