Will Braves first baseman Matt Olson be the last MLB Iron Man of the 21st century?

It was 29 years ago this month that Cal Ripken Jr. showed us what a 20th-century Iron Man looked like. By which we mean this.

But in case you hadn’t noticed, it’s a very different time to be a baseball player in North America. So on that note, here’s what a 21st-century Iron Man looks like.

That’s Matt Olson, who may not be as iconic as Ripken but still is a man with two current Iron Man claims to fame:

1) He has been an Atlanta Brave for three seasons now. You could locate him at first base in every darned game the Braves have played in that span — all 473 of them, the most games played by anyone in baseball since the start of 2022.

2) But that’s not all, because if you roll the Iron Man clock back to his time in Oakland, Olson just blew past a very cool round number: 600 games played in a row.

So … only another 2,000, and he’ll be breathing down Ripken’s neck hairs. Right? You think he’ll take one of those Ripken-esque victory laps when he breaks the Iron Man record … in 2037?

“What is that — like, 18 years?” Olson said, with a mathematically incorrect chuckle. “Yeah, if I’m playing when I’m 48, I’ll take a victory lap.”

Aw heck, it’s only another 13 years. So he’s almost there. Or not. But forget that Ripken stuff. We’re actually calling your attention to Olson’s streak because he is about to pass another legendary name. And once he does, he’ll carve out a slice of Iron Man history that will be all his.

This Thursday, according to STATS Perform, Olson is in line to play in his 477th consecutive game as a first baseman. And why is that so special? Because he will tie Pete Rose that day for the longest streak of games played at first base in the last 80 years.

Once Olson passes Rose, he’ll own the second-longest streak at first base since Lou Gehrig — behind only Frank (Buck) McCormick of the 1938-42 Cincinnati Reds (652 in a row). And it will give Olson the fourth-longest streak at first of anyone in the modern era not named Gehrig, trailing just McCormick, Fred Luderus (533) and Gus Suhr (505).

“Those are some cool names for sure,” Olson said. “Especially nowadays.”

Fortunately for us, he then helpfully supplied his own definition of “nowadays.”

Nowadays, load management has become a thing in this sport, even though, in Olson’s eyes, “we’re not full NBA.” And nowadays, matchups have also become a thing. Never in history have there been fewer true everyday players, as more teams play platoon-advantage, mix-and-match lineup bingo all over the diamond.

So let’s think about this. Will there ever be another Ripken? Will there ever even be another Matt Olson? Is the whole Iron Man concept dying before our eyes? And if it is, is that a good thing — a smart, scientific, health-driven thing? Or is it another once-romantic baseball phenomenon that is being driven out of the sport by the new wave of deep, analytical thinking?

All Olson set out to do when he began this streak was play, and be there for his team. But his streak has also given us a reason to dig in on what this all means. So let’s do that, OK?

Let’s talk history

Before we get into why Matt Olson does what he does — and why the Braves are all-in on him doing it — let’s look deeper into just how rare this is.

Life after Ripken — Did you know that since Ripken’s streak of 2,632 consecutive games played ended in 1998, Olson is only the second player to have a consecutive games streak of 600 games or longer? The other: Miguel Tejada, who played in 1,152 in a row from 2000-07.

He’s well positioned — But it’s the number of games Olson has strung together, while playing defense at his position, that truly separates his streak from almost every other recent Iron Man streak.

Even Tejada played “only” 807 consecutive games at shortstop (from 2000-05), according to STATS. So Olson could pass him, for the longest streak at any position since Ripken, by April 2027.

And by the end of this season, only six men would rank ahead of Olson for the longest streaks at any position in the last 80 years:

(Source: STATS Perform; *projected total at end of season)

A relevant side note about that list: Just two of those six players (Ripken and Tejada) compiled those streaks in the 162-game era, now six decades old.

Cal Ripken Jr. jokes with Miguel Tejada during the 10th anniversary celebration of his record-breaking 2,131st consecutive game. (Matthew S. Gunby / Associated Press)

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Where’s Garvey? We know what you’re thinking: What about Steve Garvey, who famously strung together a 1,207-game streak from 1975-83, as the first baseman for the Dodgers and Padres? Excellent question!

Garvey’s streak is one of three 1,000-gamers (or longer) in the last half-century. But it didn’t make the list above because he extended it seven times with pinch-hitting appearances. Therefore, it doesn’t qualify for the leaderboard of longest streaks playing first base. And that’s an important distinction.

Who’s on first — Would it shock you to know that it’s not out of the question that Olson could catch Gehrig himself? It stunned us. But we’re not talking about Gehrig’s fabled 2,130-game streak that Ripken passed. This would be only his longest streak while playing first base.

Did you know that Gehrig occasionally wore an outfield glove when the Yankees needed him to? Look it up.

And because he did, his longest consecutive-games streak while playing first was “only” 885 games, from 1925-30, according to STATS. That means that if Olson can keep going, he could grind past that Gehrig streak in July 2027 … and (amazingly) rank No. 1 in the modern era. That could actually happen.

At that point, only two men in the modern era would stand in front of Olson at any position:

(Source: STATS Perform)

Are we getting ahead of ourselves? Of course we are. But what the heck. Olson has no intention of pulling the plug on this streak any time soon. So he’s closer to big-time Iron Man history than anyone seems to have noticed. Now let’s look at what drives him.

Why Matt Olson just keeps on posting

Long before Matt Olson began streaking toward Rose and Gehrig, he played all 162 games for the A’s back in 2018. He was 24. It was his first full season in the big leagues. But he didn’t join the 162-Game Club just because the A’s had no one else to play first. No, even back then, Olson was a man with a purpose.

“It’s kind of how I was wired, growing up, a little bit anyway,” he said. “But when I got to the big leagues, Marcus Semien was there in Oakland. And he was adamant about playing every day.”

You hear Semien’s name a lot when this subject comes up. Maybe because the Rangers’ second baseman is about to rack up his eighth season playing 155 games or more, in just 10 seasons as a regular in the big leagues. How many other players have done that over these last 10 seasons? Yep, none.

Semien has had three seasons in that span when he played all 162 games. That’s tied for the most among all active players. Want to guess who’s tied with him? Right. Matt Olson.

So even as he was still figuring out how to be an everyday player, Olson had Semien’s voice in his ear, preaching the meaning of literally playing every day. All these years later, that voice is still there. He was so conscious of Semien’s determination to will his way into the lineup every day, it was hard for Olson — and the rest of those A’s — to envision what would happen if anyone even tried to make Semien take a day off.

“I don’t think anybody wanted to find out,” Olson said. “I remember he had, like, a little wrist thing going on one time — some inflammation, that sort of thing. The staff wanted to give him a couple days off. I don’t know exactly how it went. I just know there were some words exchanged. Then sure enough, he’s in the lineup that night.

“What Marcus always preached was: You owe it to your teammates and the fans (to be out there). And you get paid to play. You’re not going to be 100 percent every game. But you know, a lot of times, Marcus Semien at 85 percent is better than a lot of other people’s 100 percent. So you just have to be able to find how to navigate it, maybe cut some workload down before the game … so you find a way to be out there.”

Now, that’s exactly what Olson preaches to the players around him. He says that since he arrived in Atlanta, he has never once had to fight his way into the lineup — and has never been physically hurting enough that his health even became a question.

“The way I look at it, you’re either hurt hurt, or you’re able to go,” he said. “So knock on wood, I haven’t had a lot of those, like, halfway injuries — you know, something where they tell you rest would help but you’re not totally hurt.”

So he’s a firm believer in the old Marcus Semien adage: If it’s not broken, you can play. But he also has seen enough of his teammates go down around him that he knows how fortunate he is that all that stuff that can happen in baseball hasn’t happened to him.

“There’s a ton of luck involved with that,” he said. “You know, shoot, just look at our last 30 games, of (all the) guys getting hit by pitches.”

There was one day in September 2022 when his manager, Brian Snitker, didn’t start him, on a Saturday afternoon in Philadelphia. It was Game 152 of Olson’s first season in Atlanta. So his streak wasn’t a topic yet. And Snitker acknowledged he wanted to give his first baseman some kind of breather — but knew going in it almost certainly wouldn’t be for all nine innings.

“I said (to him): ‘You know what? We’ve got to win, like 12-0, for you not to play in that game,” Snitker recalled.

So sure enough, he subbed Olson in for defense in the eighth inning. Olson has started every day since. But that can only happen if his team buys into the meaning of that. So let’s look at …

Why the Braves are on board

Matt Olson admires a home run. “The players are the ones that set the culture,” Braves president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos said. (Brad Penner / USA Today)

Is less really more? People may think that way now in the inner sanctum of most franchises. But in Atlanta, they have a different motto:

More is more.

Nowhere else in baseball is the concept of posting up more ingrained in the culture than it is in the heartbeat of the Atlanta Braves. Remember 2021, when their entire starting infield played between 156 and 160 games, missing 13 games combined? That wasn’t an aberration. It’s what they do.

So part of why he’s so committed to going out there, Olson said, is that he grew up in Georgia as a Braves fan … “and that’s just what they’ve done forever. Maybe it’s because maybe I grew up watching the Braves, and I loved seeing the guys in the lineup every day.”

That work ethic was preached by Chipper Jones, back when he was playing more than 150 games in eight seasons in a row. It was passed down to Freddie Freeman, who had six seasons as a Brave in which he missed five games or fewer. Now, it’s Olson … and Austin Riley … and Ozzie Albies … who keep that culture alive, broken bones notwithstanding.

“I don’t believe that it’s the organization that’s setting the culture,” Braves president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos said. “The players are the ones that set the culture. That’s impacted by what players we acquire. But look, the ‘Games Played’ column is something we looked at with Matt Olson. … Obviously, he’s a very good player, but that’s part of what drew us to him as well.”

And never have the Braves appreciated that quality more than this year, when it feels as though some sort of freak injury has knocked out everybody on the roster … except Matt Olson.

But it isn’t just the Braves’ injury epidemic that Olson has had to dodge this year. It’s a force that can sometimes be even harder to avoid:

The Noise.

When you hit 54 homers with a .993 OPS one year … and then sag to 25 homers with a .764 OPS the next, it’s amazing how all those standing ovations can turn into The Noise. When your OPS plunges by more than 200 points, The Noise can turn a guy’s dedication to playing every day into a whole different narrative: He’s selfish. He needs a rest. He’s killing that team. Blahblahblah.

That noise is out there. But if the Braves hear it, or care about it, they’re doing an excellent job of disguising it.

“I hear it,” Snitker said. “But I don’t pay attention to it, because I’ll talk to the player. And if he feels like he needs a day off, then I will. But I never (thought that), watching (Olson) and how he handled everything. It wasn’t going like he really wanted. But you know what? He came to work every day, the same guy, and I never saw that he was tired. … So I just never felt like he needed it.”

Olson, not surprisingly, seconds that motion.

“You never know when your day is going to be,” he said. “You know, if it’s going bad, sure, I can see the benefit of sometimes sitting back and watching the game. But it doesn’t solve the problem. The only thing you can do is go out there and work your way out of something that’s not going well. So it’s never been something that’s really crossed my mind.”

But there’s a bigger question out there — and it isn’t only about Matt Olson. So let’s just ask it …

Is it OK to ignore load management?

If Cal Ripken Jr. was just arriving in the big leagues in 2024, what would the odds be that he’d be chasing down Lou Gehrig’s record someday? What do you think … 10 percent? … 5 percent? … 0 percent?

I asked that question of one of baseball’s brightest workload-management authorities, Casey Mulholland, the other day. He found it just as intriguing as you’d imagine.

“It would sort of depend on what organization he’s playing for,” Mulholland said. “It would depend on how much they value the idea of him being a franchise player for them.”

Would he be playing for a team that didn’t believe anybody should play more than 150 games? Or would he be playing for a team that did what Ripken’s Orioles did back in the day — listen to him all those times when he said: “I’m not really hurt. Let me play. I can do this.”

“Players are still having that discussion,” said Mulholland, the founder/lead developer at KineticPro Performance in Tampa, Fla. “Just now, it’s becoming much more scientific, a much more mathematical discussion, versus, ‘Hey, I feel good,’ and we’re going to talk (about those) feelings and put them back out there on the field. I think that’s the difference.”

You probably can guess where the Braves stand on the load-management spectrum. But when Snitker was asked, point blank, whether he believes in load management, he didn’t hedge.

“No,” he replied, succinctly. “I think these guys train to do this every day, right? Because (that’s) the Braves’ culture. … We’ve had guys with broken bones and things like that. But (that mindset of playing every day), I think that keeps them from getting the soft-tissue stuff and pulled muscles and everything.

“I’ve learned that over the years. I used to think that, but after being with these guys and talking to the guys that are doing it every day, yeah, they’ve made a believer out of me.”

 You should know that even though Snitker is 68 and a baseball lifer, he regularly displays a balance between new-age analytic concepts and age-old baseball wisdom. But which of those is “Less is More”? We ask because there’s no simpler way to explain the idea behind load management than that: Less really can be more. And the science proves it.

Mulholland often uses the analogy of a guy running a marathon who had never trained to run those 26 miles. We all know how that works out.

“So then guys get fatigued, and then guys get hurt,” Mulholland said. “And that’s the idea of load management. We’re trying to avoid fatigue.”

But to be done right, load management needs to be nuanced. Wearable technology can provide important, detailed information on what athletes are and aren’t capable of. But Mulholland asks: Are teams actually using that data? Are those athletes even granting them permission to use it? And if not, and teams are just using arbitrary limits — 100 pitches for every pitcher, 150 games a year for every position player — that can create a whole different set of issues.

Or then there’s the even more basic question: What if this guy has trained to run that marathon?

And that’s exactly how Anthopoulos looks at Matt Olson — as just the latest star player he’s been around who has devoted his life, on and off the field, to the idea that it’s important to play every day.

“So if he’s not on the injury report and he’s not complaining of anything,” Anthopoulos said, “we’ve just had too many years and too many examples of (what he’s capable of). The guy was a top-four MVP candidate last year, and played every day. … He’s been an elite player with all those games played. So it’s hard to just all of a sudden point to that and say he needs a rest.”

If fatigue was the problem this year, how do we explain why August was Olson’s best month (eight home runs, .573 slugging percentage, .912 OPS) of the season?

The Braves have looked long and hard at the concept of load management. But they also believe in the value of a centerpiece player who sends a message to everyone around him that the quest for greatness begins with work ethic.

“It’s all just been a mentality,” Anthopoulos said. “And look, obviously, some of it is luck. You can get hit by a pitch, and so on. But those guys that post and play every day, year after year, I don’t think it’s a coincidence. I don’t think it’s luck. There’s definitely a common trait to all these guys.”

And Matt Olson is all about that trait. He knows his streak will end someday, because all streaks do. But when it does, it won’t be because he and his team suddenly have discovered a newfound belief in load management.

“I’m not a fan of it,” Olson said. “I mean, I can see the reasons for it. It’s a long season. But it’s also a game of rhythm and flow. And I would rather just continue to go.”

— The Athletic’s David O’Brien contributed to this report. 

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(Top photo: Nick Wosika / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)