Baldwin is Atlanta’s only representative on Keith Law’s Top 100 list but he’s sitting relatively high on that list.
Prospect ranking season continues to roll on here in January, as Keith Law of The Athletic has recently revealed his annual Top 100 Prospect List. As you can probably guess, there was one Atlanta Braves representative on this particular list, as the Braves haven’t exactly been loaded with top-caliber prospects at the moment.
With that being said, Atlanta’s top prospect is a highly-rated one as C Drake Baldwin has made it into the Top 30 of Keith Law’s annual Top 100 at No. 27 overall. Here’s a small bit of Law’s analysis of Baldwin (subscription highly recommended):
He hits the ball extremely hard — his average exit velocity in Triple A was 92 mph, his EV50 was 103, and his 90th percentile EV was 107 — so there’s every reason to think the power is real. He whistles the bat through the zone with excellent bat speed, and even with a pretty high starting position he hasn’t had trouble getting to pitches at the bottom of the strike zone so far. He’s an outstanding blocker and receiver with plus arm strength but just fringy accuracy so far, leading to a career 20 percent caught stealing rate in the minors. A 20-homer catcher with plus defense will rank among the best backstops in the majors, and Baldwin looks like he can be at least that, and probably will debut this year.
It’s also interesting to note the wording that Law used to start out his analysis — specifically that he’s “Such a good defender behind the plate that he’s almost certainly going to be someone’s everyday catcher.” The emphasis in that quote is my own, which seems to indicate that we’re all aware of — which is that Baldwin could serve as a pretty big trade chip for the Braves should they decide that they don’t want to roll the red carpet for him to walk into the starting role at catcher going forward.
Still, it’s pretty impressive to see Baldwin go from being unranked by Keith Law last year to getting a relatively lofty position in this year’s rankings. It’ll also be interesting to see what Law thinks of the rest of Atlanta’s farm system once he releases that later on down the road. For now, Drake Baldwin continues to receive plenty of offseason accolades heading into what could be a big season for him here in 2025.