Drake Baldwin wins National League Rookie of the Year, earns Braves PPI pick
brave catcher Derek Baldwin He has been named the 2025 National League Rookie of the Year, the Baseball Writers Association of America announced. Cade Horton Cubs and Caleb Durbin The Brewers finished second and third in the voting. A win for Baldwin would give Atlanta access to additional draft picks after the first round in 2026 through prospect promotion incentives. Holden earned a full year of service time by finishing in the top two. Full voting results can be found here.
Baldwin entered the year as one of the best prospects in baseball. Since his season in Triple-A is over, he has a chance to hit the big leagues starting in 2025. However, Atlanta’s start to the season will be Sean Murphy as the main backing. Some believe Baldwin should not be a reliever at the major league level but should stay at the Triple-A level and get regular reps.
In early March, Murphy suffered a broken rib and the injury lasted four to six weeks. That opens the door for Baldwin to get the Opening Day job. He performed well in the spring and Atlanta added him to the roster before Opening Day. Although Murphy recovered in early April, Baldwin had already started giving birth and never really stopped. The two have shared receiving duties fairly evenly for months, although Murphy returned to the injured list in September with a torn labrum in his right hip.
Baldwin finished the year with 446 appearances in 124 games. He hit 19 home runs, slashed .274/.341/.469 and had a wRC+ of 125. That means he’s 25 percent better than the league average hitter, although that’s higher than the standard for catchers. Most outlets consider his defense to be slightly below average, but not by much. FanGraphs has him with 3.1 more wins on the year than his replacement.
While Baldwin’s win is certainly gratifying for him personally, it’s also good for the team. The current collective bargaining agreement introduces measures to combat service time manipulation. If a team promotes a top prospect early enough to get a full year of service, the player meets certain bonus criteria and the team will receive an additional pick after the first round of the next draft. Since Baldwin is the consensus top prospect and has improved throughout the year, his Rookie of the Year award brings a 2026 PPI bonus pick to Atlanta.
Horton also enters the season as one of the top prospects. He finished at the 3A level in 2024 but only made five appearances at that level. He was sent back to Triple-A to start 2025, but the Cubs need rotation help early because Justin Steele and Shota Imaga By early May, both were on the injured list.
Horton was drafted into the Army on May 10. Although a broken rib put him on the injured list at the end of September, he remained with the club for the remainder of his career. He has pitched 118 innings this season, allowing 2.67 runs per nine.
Maybe there is some luck involved. Horton’s 20.4% strikeout rate was subpar, but his 6.9% on-base rate was good and his 42.3% ground ball rate was about average. His batting average in the game was .258 and his batting average was 78.3%, which is both on the lucky side. ERA estimators (such as his 3.58 FIP and 4.26 SIERA) believe his ERA should be higher, although he still performed well enough to finish second in the voting.
This is significant for Horton because there is a flip side to the aforementioned team PPI bonus. If a top prospect is not promoted early in the season to get a full service year, he can receive retroactive service by finishing in the top two in Rookie of the Year voting. Horton only received 142 service days this year, 30 fewer than the 172 required for a full season, but this vote would push his service days to the one-year mark. This means he will become a free agent after 2030 instead of 2031.
There will be more to come.
