Braves catcher Drake Baldwin was watching the Green Bay Packers face the Philadelphia Eagles on TV with teammate Spencer Schwellenbach in Atlanta on Monday night when he learned that he was named the National League Rookie of the Year.
Baldwin received 21 of the possible 30 first-place votes from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, while Cubs right-hander Cade Horton finished second with nine first-place votes and Brewers infielder Caleb Durbin ended up in third place.
Baldwin won the prestigious award after putting up a slash line of 274/.341/.469 with 19 homers and 80 RBIs in 124 games. He became just the seventh rookie in franchise history to plate 80 runs in his season debut and the first since Chipper Jones in 1995. Baldwin also became just the seventh rookie catcher in history to reach the milestone, and the first since Geovany Soto in 2008.
Baldwin was the first Braves position player to start his debut on Opening Day since Tyler Pastornicky opened at short in 2012, and the only such player to do so as catcher for this franchise since 1966. Baldwin became the 10th Braves player to win the Rookie of the Year award and the first since outfielder Michael Harris II did so in 2022. He is the second Atlanta catcher to earn the honor, joining Earl Williams in 1971.
Baldwin said he was surprised to be voted the best Rookie because he looked at Horton’s numbers after the All-Star Break [8-1, 1.03] and they were phenomenal.
“You look at the numbers he had and he had a special year,” Baldwin told the local media. “Either way, I don’t think I would have been disappointed. It’s obviously cool to win the award. But if he won it, he had an incredible year as well… I don’t know. I didn’t think I would be that nervous, but once I got on the call [with MLB Network], my heart was pounding. It was a great moment.”
When Spring Training started in February of 2025, Baldwin was content to start the season with Triple-A Gwinnett. He pointed out that he played only a half season with the team in 2024. But Balwin’s confidence soared during the exhibition season, going 12-for-42 [.286] with four RBIs. By late March, he was on the Opening Day roster.
“Getting the opportunity to [be] on the big-league roster and, obviously with [catcher Sean Murphy] coming back, I didn’t know how they were going to work around it,” Baldwin said. “Having [general manager] Alex [Anthopoulos] … keep me on the team, there was some confidence there that he trusted me.
“Now, going through the whole year, there were so many ups and downs. It went by pretty quick with how fun it was – the amount of really good guys on the Braves that made it worth going into the locker room every single day and going out there and having a lot of fun playing baseball. I don’t know if I wrapped it up completely yet. I have to wrap up this award as well and realize how much this means. It’s kind of surreal right now. It was an incredible year.”
The Braves pitching staff was comfortable with Baldwin behind the plate all year. Take ace Chris Sale: He had nothing but praise for Baldwin, 24. Having the 2024 Cy Young Award winner by his side energized Baldwin and it started during the first regular season game during Atlanta’s 7-4 loss to the Padres on March 27th.
“It was a tough first inning. We started using his changeup to get out of it,” Baldwin recalled. “He came in the dugout and said, ‘I like the changeup. Great job using it.’ I was trying some new stuff out and he said that. I was like, ‘Wow. This is pretty cool.’ It definitely gave me some confidence that I can do it [in the Major Leagues]. What I’m seeing, I can believe in. When a guy like that is complementing what you are doing… A lot of credit goes to him for being able to realize it. I don’t know if he realized how much of an impact it had on me.”
