Is Atlanta better with Matt Olson than Freddie Freeman? Keith Law answers and breaks down the A's prospect haul - The Athletic

Atlanta may be moving on from Freddie Freeman, as it just traded four of its top 16 prospects, three of them in its top 10, to acquire Matt Olson from Oakland, getting the last two years of the patient slugger before he’s scheduled to hit free agency after 2023.

Olson had his best season in 2021, with career highs in homers, walks, on-base percentage, walk and contact rates, and nearly so in slugging percentage, all of which seems to push his awful 2020 showing into the short-season fluke bucket. He was just better in all the ways, with some of the best underlying pitch and batted-ball data of his career, as well – for example, he’s never made this much contact on fastballs before. He gave up a little bit of contact quality for putting more balls in play overall, but that is a great tradeoff when you just generally hit the ball hard. He’s become an above-average defender at first, although he’ll probably settle in more toward average as he ages. He was more valuable than Freeman in 2021 and in 2019, and he’s four and a half years younger, so there’s more reason to think he’ll hold his value. It may not feel this way to diehard fans, but the team is probably a little better in 2022-23 for having Olson than Freeman, and very unlikely to be any worse off for it, especially if they take the $10 million to $15 million a year they’re saving here and put it toward starting pitching and/or a corner outfield spot.

source: https://theathletic.com/3183395/2022/03/14/is-atlanta-better-with-matt-olson-than-freddie-freeman-keith-law-answers-and-breaks-down-the-as-prospect-haul/

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