The only complaint on Baldwin coming out of Triple-A was not pulling pitches to right field. Looks like he’s answered that.
Coming into 2025, Drake Baldwin appeared to be everything that you would expect a top prospect in the Atlanta Braves organization could be. He hit at every level in 2024, posting a .244/.313/.337 line with a 104 wRC+ in the offense-suppressed AA South (RIP Southern League), a .298/.407/.484 line with 125 wRC+ in Triple-A, and a .377/.452/.491 line in the Arizona Fall League, where the top prospects go for more training.
What is interesting is that everyone raved about the defense as well, insisting that he can stay at starting catcher with any organization. The pop time, a.k.a how fast he could release a throw toward a baserunner’s intended base, was top level. The only thing he needed to work on was pulling the ball for power. It’s safe to say he’s answered those questions.
Look at this shot from Baldwin here. This thing is tagged 416 feet with 112.3 MPH and 28 launch angle and, unbelievably for Alex Cora, barely inside the foul pole. This one is cherry-picked for sure, but he’s had no trouble putting the ball anywhere he likes.
Can you find a trend here? I can’t. If anything, he may have trouble in the power alleys, but it’s 110 plate appearances we’re inspecting here. He appears to have an ability to hot grounders slightly right of second base, and two of those dots came in the same series versus the Nationals when they insisted on playing him more to pull on the infield.
So hitting to all fields doesn’t seem to be giving Drake a lot of trouble. He has 19 hits to the right of second base versus 14 hits to the left, which is a healthy mix. Maybe there is a certain type of pitch that he has trouble with.
Those all look pretty healthy to me. He’s hitting only .226 versus breaking pitches, but that comes with a .581 slugging percentage and .439 xwOBA. He doesn’t look particularly vulnerable to one type of pitch versus another. Is there a particular part of the strike zone that he has trouble with?
Yeah, this looks pretty outstanding here. He’s getting probably more singles that you would like in the power cross area of the strike zone, but he’s productive here and not missing a lot at all. On his work outside the zone, he’s hitting .212 with a xwOBA of .272. That’s an above average batting average with a slightly below average xwOBA versus the rest of baseball. The walk rate is a little low at 7.3%, but he’s red hot and probably not looking to walk first right now. How are pitchers getting him out right now?
The strikeout rate is a robust 14.5%. If you want to get a strikeout, you better fool him with a sinker. Or throw a breaking pitch below the zone. If it’s in the zone, he may get himself out but he will likely hit it. Over the plate and low with breaking stuff works on to some degree on every hitter.
The defense right now isn’t quite as good as advertised. The pop times coming out of the minor league were around 1.7 if I remember correctly. This makes me wonder if there are some aborted throws to second in this data or some throws to first base where he had to work around a batter. He has 2 passed balls and had 10 wild pitches get away, so there’s some room for improvement here. But there’s no reason to think he can’t play major league catcher though.
With the Braves having a very solid catcher in Sean Murphy, I wouldn’t mind brainstorming here for some ideas to get Drake Baldwin some more playing time. He’s played a tiny amount of DH this year, but you have Marcell Ozuna soaking up the vast majority of those at-bats, with good reason. They have allowed him to pitch hit, which is really stretching the Atlanta Braves brain trust to play two of their catchers in a game compared to previous years. There’s always left field. I don’t know if I want Drake Baldwin to learn a new position or risk an injury doing this, however. He’s two months into his career and doing such a great job.
If we’re going to push anyone into left field for more offense while waiting for Jurickson Profar to return, I would put Marcell Ozuna out there one or two days a week and let Drake Baldwin be the designed hitter. But right now you’re telling me that would be horrific seeing Marcell Ozuna in left field. I agree. He hasn’t been out there in three years. He has been playing first base in spring training when he’s in the field rather than the outfield. He would likely kick a ball in one of those two games a week. I don’t really care. I’m not pushing Drake into the outfield without a full offseason. And if Marcell Ozuna strains a fat roll chasing a ball into the corner, so be it. He can come out of the game for the eighth inning.
I waited until Drake Baldwin got a decent amount of games under his belt in order to gain a broader look at his MLB numbers. There was rarely a time this year where he looked out of place. The Braves shouldn’t wait too terribly long before they start to find other ways to get him more at-bats.