LAS VEGAS — A year ago, the Braves were in negotiations for a potential blockbuster trade, but the other team wanted catcher Drake Baldwin in a package along with four or five other players. The other team wouldn’t budge on Baldwin, but the Braves weren’t parting with their then-No. 1 position prospect, so the proposal died.
Braves fans are glad it did.
Baldwin, who emerged as a franchise-cornerstone type player in 2025, was named National League Rookie of the Year on Monday, beating out Chicago Cubs pitcher Cade Horton in a close race. Baldwin received 21 first-place votes from Baseball Writers’ Association of America members, ending with 183 points overall. Horton received the other nine first-place votes and finished with 139 points.
“This is one of the coolest things that I’ve ever had happen,” said Baldwin, 24, the first catcher to win the NL rookie award since the San Francisco Giants’ Buster Posey in 2010. “I didn’t think I was gonna be that nervous for it, but once I got on the call my heart was pounding. It was a really cool moment.”
Former Philadelphia Phillies slugger Ryan Howard, who was the 2005 NL Rookie of the Year, presented the award to Baldwin.
A season to remember.
Congratulations to Drake Baldwin, the 2025 National League Rookie of the Year! pic.twitter.com/IWUSrXHq0b
— Atlanta Braves (@Braves) November 11, 2025
Baldwin, a Wisconsin native, was at the Atlanta home of Braves pitcher Spencer Schwellenbach to watch the Green Bay Packers play, and there were celebratory shouts in the background when Howard announced Baldwin’s name.
“I wanted to be with some people who definitely helped make it happen,” Baldwin said of his choice of places to be for the announcement.
Horton was a slight favorite to win the award in the final betting odds, though he and Baldwin had gone back and forth in the top spots during the final two months of the season.
“You look at the numbers he had and he had a special year,” Baldwin said. “So either way, I don’t think I would have been disappointed, let’s say. But it’s obviously really cool to win the award.”
Baldwin is the sixth Brave to win NL Rookie of the Year since 1990 and third in the past eight seasons, after Michael Harris II in 2022 and Ronald Acuña Jr. in 2018. No other NL team had multiple rookie-of-the-year winners in that stretch, and no AL team had more than two.
Entering the season, Baldwin had no previous major league experience and went to spring training figuring he would likely spend at least the first part of the season back at Triple A, where he’d only played 75 games. But instead, he earned an Opening Day spot with an outstanding camp, then was thrust into the Opening Day lineup after veteran Sean Murphy fractured a rib in spring training.
Baldwin immediately showed he could figuratively keep his head above water, and soon after proved that he was ready to thrive. Which he did, all season, becoming one of the most consistently productive hitters in the lineup, particularly in pressure situations.
Baldwin hit .274 with 19 home runs and an .810 OPS and 126 OPS+, leading NL rookies with 80 RBIs in 124 games and 446 plate appearances, including 85 starts at catcher and 12 at designated hitter.
“Even getting the opportunity to make the big league roster, and then obviously with Murph coming back (in the second week of the season), I didn’t know exactly how they were gonna work with that. And having (general manager Alex Anthopoulos) be able to trust me and keep me on the team, it was a huge.
“It was some confidence there, that he trusted me. Going through the whole year there’s so many ups and downs and it honestly went by pretty quick with how fun it was, with the amount of really good guys from on the Braves that make it worth going in the locker room every single day and going out there and having a lot of fun playing baseball.”
Because Baldwin was on the Opening Day roster and stayed with the team all season, and was a top-100 prospect entering the season, the Braves will receive an extra draft pick at the end of the first round for his winning NL Rookie of the Year. It’s a recent MLB rule and the pick is known as a Prospect Promotion Incentive (PPI) pick.
That extra pick could also be helpful if the Braves were to sign a free agent who turned down a qualifying offer from his former team, in which case the signing team gives up a draft pick to the team from which the player got the QO.
He shared catching duties with Murphy for much of the season, but in the second half Baldwin was already getting more starts than Murphy before the veteran had season-ending hip surgery in the second week of September.
Murphy is expected to be ready for spring training, but that’s not a certainty, nor is the playing arrangement once he returns. One thing seems almost certain: Baldwin will be in the regular lineup, at catcher or DH, most of the time.
After posting a .731 OPS through April, Baldwin had a robust .389 batting average and 1.003 OPS in May, and finished with an OPS of .800 or above in each of the last three months of the season.
All the while, pitchers lauded his communication and game-calling abilities and his defensive skills, the latter an area that Baldwin worked diligently to improve in his past two major league spring trainings.
“Catching is a very tough ask from young guys,” Braves veteran ace Chris Sale said in late September, when he explained why he thought Baldwin should win rookie of the year. “You’ve got a guy that’s got to worry about hitting. And then he’s got, 13, 14-plus pitchers that he’s got to deal with — personalities, stuff, in-between games, stuff like that. And we asked a lot of him early and we’re certainly asking a lot of him now with Murph being gone.
“Even early on, you’re talking about a guy that really came out the first month, his numbers weren’t great, but some of the peripherals were really kind of jumping out at you. I mean, this guy probably had more 100-mile-an-hour hit baseballs with nothing to show for it. And the frustration of that could be overwhelming. And it’s easy to take it out on defense, which he never did. I think for a young guy to be able to not only deal with that, but to overcome that and do his job behind the plate and excel behind the (plate) is special.”
Brian Snitker, who retired as Braves manager after the season, said watching Baldwin’s growth was a highlight of the season for him.
“It’s way more than I anticipated a young guy would accomplish,” Snitker said. “He’s just matured, got more confident, and his whole game has picked up. And he’s so much better today than he was (Opening Day) in San Diego. He is light years ahead of where he was then even, right now, after all the experience. And hopefully he’s gonna hoist the Rookie of the Year trophy in six weeks. He’s been such an impressive young man and young player.”
Now, he’s got that trophy.
