Fastball

Atlanta Braves First Baseman Matt Olson Set to Enter 2025 Season on Historic List

The days of Cal Ripken are long gone in professional baseball, but Matt Olson is certainly the iron man of the current game.

Brady Farkas

Atlanta Braves first baseman Matt Olson (28) does an interview after clinching a wild card birth in the playoffs after a victory over the New York Mets at Truist Park on Sept 30.
Atlanta Braves first baseman Matt Olson (28) does an interview after clinching a wild card birth in the playoffs after a victory over the New York Mets at Truist Park on Sept 30. / Brett Davis-Imagn Images
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Atlanta Braves first baseman Matt Olson will enter the 2025 season in some historic company, thanks to the fact that he's played 620 consecutive games in his career.

Sarah Langs of MLB.com looked back at the significance of that accomplishment in a year-end review.

The only other streaks of at least 600 consecutive games to begin in the divisional era (since 1969) are, of course, 1982-98 Cal Ripken Jr. (2,632 games), as well as 1975-83 Steve Garvey (1,207), 2000-07 Miguel Tejada (1,152), 1978-83 Pete Rose (745), 1981-86 Dale Murphy (740), 1973-78 Rose (678) and 1969-73 Sandy Alomar Sr. (661).

Olson hasn't missed a game since May 2nd of 2021, meaning that his streak spans three full seasons and change. While that's a far cry from Ripken's record-breaking consecutive games streak, it's pretty incredible for the current game. In a league where players frequently rest in order to stay at optimum levels, Olson just doesn't.

Also, Olson has been able to stay remarkably healthy, which is also an incredible feat.

Olson is now 30 years old and is coming off a year in which he hit .247 with 29 homers and 98 RBI. He posted a .333 on-base percentage for the Braves, who advanced to the National League wild card round of the playoffs.

Lifetime, Olson is a two-time All-Star, a two-time Gold Glover and a Silver Slugger winner. He hit a career-high 54 homers for the Braves in 2023. That led all of baseball, and he also led baseball in RBI that year with 139.

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Brady Farkas
BRADY FARKAS

Brady Farkas is a baseball writer for Fastball on Sports Illustrated/FanNation and the host of 'The Payoff Pitch' podcast which can be found on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Videos on baseball also posted to YouTube. Brady has spent nearly a decade in sports talk radio and is a graduate of Oswego State University. You can follow him on Twitter @WDEVRadioBrady. 

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