Rookie phenom Drake Baldwin continues to show he can handle big league pitching. In 65 plate appearances for the Atlanta Braves, Baldwin is batting .276 with a .796 OPS, three home runs and seven RBIs. For a catcher that’s in the first month of his MLB career, he’s rolling.
When looking deeper into the metrics, Baldwin is closer to one of the best hitters in baseball. According to Baseball Savant, he has an average exit velocity of 94.6 mph, a hard-hit rate of 70.8% and a squared-up rate of 34.6 percent. If he was a qualified hitter - as in he had enough plate appearances - Baldwin would be near the top of MLB with these stats.
Since he isn’t a qualified hitter, a specific percentile isn’t given. Click here to take a quick look and get a better idea.
Baldwin is also above average in his plate discipline with a lower whiff rate and strikeout rate. There are clearly areas that need work. His chase rate and walk rate are about average. However, what these metrics show is that he's hitting well above what the normal stats reveal.
Looking back to early in the season, he was seen as one of the most unlucky hitters in the Majors. He has three home runs, but he's been robbed of one already this year, and he's hit a few to simply the wrong part of the yard.
He had a lot of at-bats where he had a high-likelihood of getting of hits, but luck was not on his side. As a result, he started off 1-for-18. If he kept it up, the ball was eventually going to start landing where he wanted it too, and that's happening.
Since April 4, Baldwin is batting .366 and 1.056 OPS. In another scernario where Sean Murphy wasn't an established catcher in his own right, Baldwin might be an everyday starter. Knowing how well he's hitting and chunks of the lineup are not, it could be beneficial to find more ways to get him into the lineup.
More From Atlanta Braves On SI
More must-reads: