Could Matt Olson find his way into Cooperstown?

"Hall of Famer Matt Olson" has a nice ring to it.

Cooperstown: Every six-year-old’s dream place. You hear the historic city, and immediately your mind goes to baseball immortality.

Names like Ruth, Koufax, and Aaron have given way to Griffey, Glavine, and Beltre. But soon, those greats will give way to new greats. Guys who are in the Major Leagues right now, still dreaming of having their name enshrined in baseball history.

So now we pose the question… Could Braves first-baseman Matt Olson take the leap from “great player” to “Hall of Famer?”

Where We’re at Right Now

Matt Olson is thirty-one years old and has been in the Major Leagues for about ten years now, but if we’re looking at full seasons, he has only played seven seasons of over 125 games. These seven seasons have been nothing short of spectacular. Olson has been the “modern-day ironman.” As of August 19th, 2025, Olson passed Pete Rose in consecutive games played streak at 746 games, a streak that is still climbing.

Also, as of September 16, 2025, Olson has surpassed the “Baines Line,” which is 38.8 WAR. If you are unfamiliar with the term, let me try and explain. Harold Baines was a very, very good Major League Baseball player. However, HOF worthy? Probably not. Baines, though, was elected to the HOF in 2019 by the Veterans Committee. Fans and followers of the sport were shocked.

This set a new precedent on HOF worthiness. Does acquiring 38.8 WAR get you into the Hall of Fame? Not in and of itself, but it does pass a checkpoint.

Here are Olson’s career numbers (as of September 18, 2025): .258 BA, 1,150 hits, 287 HR, 706 R, 805 RBI, .861 OPS; 3x All-Star, 2x Gold Glove winner, and 1x Silver Slugger. Additionally, Olson holds the longest active consecutive games played streak in Major League Baseball. While passing Ironman Cal Ripken Jr’s 2,632 consecutive games seems slim, the longer Olson’s current streak goes, the more the resume builds.

Remember, these are just stats through his first ten years. Impressive, right?

Let’s Compare

Here, I’d like to take the time and compare Olson’s stats to those of recently inducted Hall of Famer Todd Helton through their age-31 seasons. This is for the sole reason of seeing what HOF first basemen are made of.

Olson is trailing Helton in almost every single conventional category:

Games Played: Olson 1,214 vs. Helton 1,279
WAR: Olson 39.8 vs. Helton 48.0
Hits: Olson 1,150 vs. Helton 1,535
HR: Olson 287 vs. Helton 271
Slash Line: Olson .258/.352/.510 vs. Helton .337/.433/.607

If your first thought is “wow, Olson is trailing in a lot of those stats,” welcome to the club.

The Coors Field boost is real and is certainly in play here, but Helton was so incredibly undervalued during his prime…hence why he is a Hall of Famer. But instead of writing the narrative a certain way, I want you to see how good Olson has been. Nearly a 40 WAR, and could possibly be there by the end of the 2025 season.

Here’s a little visual to see how the Olson/Helton comparison lines up:

While Helton easily clears Olson’s career projection for hits, Olson is estimated to clear Helton in both home runs and RBI at the current pace he’s producing.

Let’s Project

Okay, so we’ve looked at production and compared it to a Hall of Fame first baseman’s numbers. Now let’s do my favorite, most unhealthy thing of all time: Set expectations and projections!

Keeping Olson at 287 homers, let’s say he puts together eight more seasons averaging 150 hits, 35 homers, and 100 RBI (yes, I know that is hard to do). This leaves the left-handed slugger with 2,350 hits, 567 HR, and 1,605 RBI for a career. Hall of Fame numbers? Absolutely!

I am personally projecting around 70 total career WAR for Olson (which is helped by his Gold Glove ability defensively), which puts him right around HOF WAR, as Eddie Murray’s is 69.8 and Jim Thome’s is 72.9

While it may not be the hits of Ichiro, homers of Aaron, or RBI’s of Ruth, the resume is there and growing daily.

Eras and Legacies

Lastly, I want to look at the human element of the Hall of Fame vote. Because after all, humans are the ones voting him in, not machines analyzing every statistic known to man.

Let’s first look at the ‘era’ argument. Voters tend to compare players to others in their era. Currently, it is safe to say that Olson is competing with Pete Alonso, Paul Goldschmidt, and Freddie Freeman as the best first baseman of this era.

Currently, if we project like we have, Olson could very easily finish with the most HR’s and RBI of this era. This may just be good enough for voters to go “Wow! Matt Olson was the best first baseman of the 2020s!”

So, let’s look at the ‘legacies’ argument, both within the Braves franchise and outside of it.

Olson currently holds the Braves ' single-season record for both home runs and RBI with 54 HR and 139 RBI in 2023, respectively. It’s important to acknowledge that Olson did this for a franchise that is home to MLB greats Hank Aaron and Chipper Jones. That is no slouch.

Adding to the ‘legacies’ criteria is the 'modern-day Iron Man’ title that Olson has. This could carry a lot of weight, especially if the streak keeps extending. It’s all about building the resume.

Conclusion

The conclusion is simple. Matt Olson could be a Hall of Fame baseball player. However, the projections and expectations are high, so he must continue to produce big-time power numbers and Gold Glove defense.

His peak has been really good, and while peaks can get you in, it’s not quite there yet. For example, Ralph Kiner only finished with 369 HR’s, but because he led the MLB in homers for seven straight years, he ended up being voted in. Legacies.

The aforementioned title of ‘modern-day Iron Man’ is big as it sets him apart from other players knocking on the door and gives a story that voters can latch on to. So, if Matt Olson has another really good eight seasons, which I think he can do, I think he is a pretty sure-fire Hall of Famer. If he doesn’t, then he might be on the ballot for quite a long time, sweating bullets. And that’s not what we want.