Braves’ Rookie of the Year candidate Drake Baldwin deserves better

Despite consistently ranking near the bottom of the league’s farm systems, the Braves constantly pump out elite talent, and their most recent budding star is Drake Baldwin.

Years ago, it was Ronald Acuna Jr. raising the Jackie Robinson Award. A few seasons later, Michael Harris II and Spencer Strider competed for the honor, with the former coming out on top. Now, it’s their backstop.

Baldwin raked at every level on the farm and was always expected to eventually provide an impact in 2025, but it came a lot sooner than expected when Sean Murphy took a fastball to the ribs in Spring Training. That forced the Braves’ top prospect to begin the season as the club’s starting catcher.

After some bad luck to begin the year, Baldwin’s talent prevailed, and he’s been the best rookie hitter in baseball by a wide margin. He’s slashing .290/.358/.488 with 11 home runs, 8 doubles, and 39 RBIs, all of which is good for an OPS+ that is 35% above the league average.

Baldwin is the second talented catcher to come through the system, but what makes him different than William Contreras at this point in their respective careers is that Baldwin is much further along defensively than Wild Bill was during his time in Atlanta.

Among all catchers, Baldwin’s 2.2 fWAR ranks tied for seventh in the league, and his 137 wRC+ ranks fourth. The Braves have two top 10 catchers and should have another Rookie of the Year winner, but Drake Baldwin is being completely disrespected in those conversations.

Despite only making five starts for the Brewers, Jacob Misiorowski took over the lead in MLB.com’s latest ballot update, but what is most bothersome is the last bit of this quote.

“Based on his first career start, Misiorowski got one first-place vote a month ago. Now at five, and coming off an All-Star selection, he’s shot all the way to the top. It’s early, yes, but after seeing what Paul Skenes did last year, our voters were probably even more inclined to quickly buy into what Misiorowski is doing. If you subtract his one clunker — a five-run, 3 2/3 IP outing against the Mets on July 2 — he’s otherwise gone 4-0 with a 1.23 ERA and 0.68 WHIP and struck out 31 of the 79 batters he’s faced (39.2%), and tiny as that sample size is, an arm this electric is impossible to ignore.”

We are just going to completely ignore a bad outing? Well, let’s try it for Baqldwin. If you take out the first few games of his season, in which he experienced some abysmal luck, the rookie’s OPS rises to .913.

Misiorowski has electric stuff and deserves to be praised, but it seems like there’s an agenda being pushed here. After only five starts and with many more deserving candidates, he made the NL All-Star team.

While it’s like comparing apples to oranges, Baldwin’s OPS+ is 35% above the league average, whereas Misiorowski’s ERA is 45% above the league average. That should tell you that the race is neck and neck, but the votes in this poll different story, with Mis garnering 19 to Baldwin’s 9.

There’s no question these voters are blinded by potential rather than focusing on the results. At a certain point, volume has to matter. Baldwin is an everyday player that has performed at an All-Star level for the entire season. Misiorowski’s stuff might be generational, but as of right now, he’s got a ton of ground to make up before being mentioned in the same sentence as Drake Baldwin when it comes to the National League Rookie of the Year race.

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