This news isn’t a surprise (and it honestly might slip under the cracks considering all of the other big news that’s concerned the Atlanta Braves today) but this is a goodie. We’ve all expected that Drake
Baldwin would be in the running for this season’s National League Rookie of the Year Award and now we have confirmation that he’s going to have a real shot at winning it. Major League Baseball has announced that Atlanta’s rookie catcher is among the three finalists to win the NL Rookie of the Year Award.
Baldwin was very impressive this season, as he earned an opportunity to step up as the starting catcher right out of spring training (following Sean Murphy fracturing a rib during camp). He took that opportunity and ran with it, as he finished the season with a slash line of .274/.341/.469 with a wOBA of .351, 125 wRC+ and 19 home runs. Last week, Baldwin took home the MLBPA Players’ Choice Award for the NL Outstanding Rookie of 2025, which figures to be a pretty good sign about his chances of taking home the hardware once the awards are announced.
Still, this doesn’t appear to be a shoo-in as Durbin finished the year hitting .256/.334/.387 with a wOBA of .319, 105 wRC+ and 11 home runs for the NL Central Champion Brewers. Meanwhile, Cade Horton played a pretty big role in helping the Cubs get to the Postseason as he posted a 2.67 ERA (65 ERA-) and a 3.58 FIP (88 FIP-) over the course of 23 appearances (22 starts) and 118 innings pitched. If we’re going by WAR then Baldwin clears both Durbin and Horton in both categories, to boot. Baldwin finished with 3.1 FWAR and 3.3 bWAR, while both Durbin and Horton were individually unable to clear the 3 WAR threshold in either category.
So with that in mind, Drake Baldwin seems like the favorite to end up becoming yet another Rookie of the Year Award winner for the Atlanta Braves in recent years but as always, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.
