FanGraphs thinks really, really highly of Drake Baldwin in particular.
Prospect ranking list season is still going and today FanGraphs released their Top 100 Prospects list for 2025. As you would expect, the Atlanta Braves have at least one representative on this list with the obvious name of Drake Baldwin. The promising catcher is joined by AJ Smith-Shawver, who also makes a very lofty appearance on the list. That’s the extent of Atlanta representatives on this list but it’s also very interesting to note their placement on these lists.
Happy Top 100 Prospects Day to all who celebrate!
— FanGraphs Baseball (@fangraphs.com) 2025-02-17T15:13:11.144Z
Drake Baldwin made the list at the lofty position of No. 11 overall, while AJ Smith-Shawver was placed at No. 40 overall. This is quite easily the highest that Baldwin has been placed on any of the prominent prospect lists, as his now-second-highest ranking is No. 27 in Keith Law’s Top 100. Smith-Shawver’s position on this list is also extremely lofty for where he’s been placed in other national prospect rankings but at the same time, it also is in line with our own Top 30 list having him as the second-best prospect in the system at the moment.
Here’s a sample of what FanGraphs had to say about Baldwin as he just missed out on being a Top-10 prospect in all of baseball in their rankings:
Baldwin’s ability to move his hands around the zone and spray well-struck contact to all fields is commensurate with an impact primary catcher. He’s thick and physical, rotates with ferocity, and yet his short levers keep his swing from getting too long. He again posted a hard-hit rate up around 50% in 2024, though Baldwin almost exclusively inside-outs fastballs the other way and big league pitchers might be able to limit his game power by attacking him with velocity on the outer third. Though a bunch of his TrackMan data is very similar to Dodgers catcher Dalton Rushing, Baldwin’s power is not as well-actualized, and stylistically, he looks more like an all-fields doubles hitter. He does a little bit of everything at a position where one thing is often enough.
Let’s also take a look at what they had to say about AJSS, who they believe is firmly a Top-50 prospect in all of baseball right now:
For Smith-Shawver to have entered pro ball as a fastball/slider projection guy and, amidst all these changes, reached the big leagues before he was legally allowed to drink is remarkable.
A super loose 6-foot-3, Smith-Shawver’s mechanical consistency should improve with reps. His fastball’s velocity and ride give it margin for error in the strike zone, but his secondary pitches (especially his slider) need to be located more consistently if they’re going to thrive. The developmental imperative for AJ and the Braves is to find more consistent slider release, so that that pitch is located off the plate rather than constantly backing up into the wheelhouse of righty batters.
I’m consciously avoiding prospect fatigue here — were Smith-Shawver a college righty sitting 95 mph with his changeup quality, we’d be talking about him as a lock to be a top 10 pick.
2025 figures to be a year of big possibilities for both Drake Baldwin and AJ Smith-Shawver, as both prospects are right on the cusp of potentially becoming MLB regular in the near future. Both prospects could play their way into a roster spot with a very strong spring training effort but even if they don’t make it for Opening Day, it really wouldn’t be shocking to see either one of them in the bigs very soon. FanGraphs figures that they’re two very good prospects and hopefully their evaluation of them is the one that eventually happens.