Braves catcher Drake Baldwin is the 2025 National League Rookie of the Year, the Baseball Writers Association of America announced. Cade Horton of the Cubs and Caleb Durbin of the Brewers finished second and third in the voting, respectively. Baldwin’s win will net Atlanta a bonus draft pick after the first round in 2026, via the Prospect Promotion Incentive. Horton earns a full year of service time from his top two finish. The full voting results can be found here.
Baldwin came into the year as one of the top prospects in baseball. Since he finished the 2024 season at Triple-A, he had a shot at a big league job to start 2025. However, Atlanta was set to open the season with Sean Murphy as the primary backstop. Rather than be a backup at the major league level, there was an argument for Baldwin to stick at Triple-A and get regular reps.
In early March, Murphy suffered a rib fracture, an injury with a timeline of four to six weeks. That opened the door for Baldwin to get an Opening Day job. He hit well in the spring and Atlanta added him to the roster prior to Opening Day. Though Murphy got healthy by early April, Baldwin had already started producing and he never really stopped. The two shared the catching duties fairly evenly for a few months, though Murphy returned to the injured list in September due to a right hip labral tear.
Baldwin finished the year with 446 plate appearances over 124 games. He hit 19 home runs and slashed .274/.341/.469 for a wRC+ of 125. That means he was 25% better than the league average hitter, though that’s even further above par for a catcher. Most outlets considered his defense to be a bit below average, but not by much. FanGraphs credited him with 3.1 wins above replacement on the year.
While Baldwin’s win is surely gratifying for him personally, it also benefits the team. The current collective bargaining agreement introduced measures to combat service time manipulation. If a team promotes a top prospect early enough for him to earn a full service year, then that player meets certain awards criteria, the team is awarded with an extra pick just after the first round in the next draft. Since Baldwin was a consensus top prospect who was up all year, his Rookie of the Year win gives Atlanta a PPI bonus pick in 2026.
Horton also came into the season as one of the top prospects. He had finished 2024 at Triple-A but with just five appearances at that level. He was sent back to Triple-A to start 2025 but the Cubs needed rotation help fairly early on, as Justin Steele and Shota Imanaga were both on the injured list by early May.
Horton was called up on May 10th. He stayed up with the club the rest of the way, though a rib fracture put him on the injured list late in September. He finished the season with 118 innings pitched, having allowed 2.67 earned runs per nine.
There was probably some luck in there. Horton’s 20.4% strikeout rate was subpar, though his 6.9% walk rate was good and his 42.3% ground ball rate right around average. His .258 batting average on balls in play and 78.3% strand rate were both to the fortunate side. ERA estimators like his 3.58 FIP and 4.26 SIERA feel his ERA should have been around a run higher, though the performance was still good enough for a second-place finish in the voting.
That is significant for Horton, as there’s a flipside to the aforementioned PPI bonuses for teams. If a top prospect is not promoted early enough in the season to get a full service year, he can earn one retroactively with a top-two finish in the Rookie of the Year voting. Horton only earned 142 service days this year, 30 shy of the 172 needed for a full season, but this vote result will get him bumped up to the one-year mark. That means he will be on pace to become a free agent after 2030 instead of 2031.
Durbin was not a top prospect to open the year, meaning PPI wasn’t a factor for him, but he had a good season regardless. Acquired from the Yankees last offseason, he was called up in April and took over the third base job in Milwaukee. He appeared in 136 games and stepped to the plate 506 times. He hit just 11 home runs and didn’t walk much but rarely struck out, leading to a .256/.334/.387 line and 105 wRC+. He also stole 18 bases and was credited with five Defensive Runs Saved and two Outs Above Average at the hot corner.
Several other players also received some recognition from the voters. Isaac Collins of the Brewers finished fourth, followed by Daylen Lile of the Nationals, Agustín Ramírez of the Marlins, Chad Patrick of the Brewers, Jakob Marsee of the Marlins, Jack Dreyer of the Dodgers, Matt Shaw of the Cubs, Jacob Misiorowski of the Brewers, Nolan McLean of the Mets and Heriberto Hernández of the Marlins.
Photo courtesy of Geoff Burke, Jordan Godfree, Isaiah J. Downing, Jeff Hanisch, Imagn Images
Well deserved kid was solid all season. Congrats to him and the Braves for believing in him from
Day 1 of the season and not playing games because of service time. Win for the team win for baseball.
Rake!!!!
Rightfully so
awesome draft ramifications, bonus pool money too i assume?
Yes they will get extra money for that slot value
Cade got screwed!
No he didn’t.
Why? He still gets the full year of service time.
Pitchers play every 5th day. They should just create 2 ROY’s in each league. 1 for pitchers and 1 for position players.
No, he did not. Baldwin was a difference maker at a premier defensive position for 124 games. Horton pitched 23 games. That is a 101 game difference. Baldwin was more impactful for the whole season than Horton was.
Horton is involved in every play as pitcher while on the mound. On defense Baldwin only matters if they hit it near him as an argument for pitchers over positional.
Catchers are involved in every pitch as well.
You didn’t know Baldwin is a catcher, did you?
Forget it, he’s rolling.
What “difference” did the difference maker make to help the Braves win games? While I know what you are trying to say, he didn’t make a meaningful difference for a below average Braves team this year. His stats were good though and he deserved the award.
Who is this Paige Leckie that forgot all about Horton?
Baldwin saved our season! Well, would have…
Horton got robbed. Baldwin had a nice season at the plate but defensively people ran on him all year long.
Baldwin was better, but Horton only played part of the season. It may have been a different story if Horton pitched the whole season.
Horton came up in early May, had 28 starts and had a 2.67 ERA in 118 innings pitched. That was simply because the Cubs had him on a pitch count. The guy was dominant most of his starts.
Baldwin had a nice season at the plate but was below average defensively and couldn’t throw a runner out to save his life.
Couldn’t throw a runner out?
Below average K rate doesn’t make him “dominant.” Guess you could say Horton couldn’t K batters at a rate above average “to save his life.”
His full stat line does.
People run on most catchers all year long now.
Yep. The bigger bases and rule not allowing pitchers to throw over more than twice w/out repercussion guaranteed stolen base totals would skyrocket. Catchers are also at the mercy of their pitchers delivery time to home.
Tissue?
Does Sean Murphy become a trade candidate now? ATL can free up some $ for other needs.
Definitely a possibility for a Murphy trade, but I think he will stay on the team. It can be beneficial to have a couple of quality catchers to sub out catching and DH.
Doubt it. There’s no catching depth in the Braves system. Unless Murphy brings back an mlb ready catcher, which is unlikely.
Coming off an injury, question marks, and his fairly expensive salary I am not sure Murphy has as much trade value as many Joe fans would think he does.
Murphy often injured batted under .200 two years running and has an enormous contract — I think Braves are stuck with him until he gets himself a better batting line
3 years at 45 million is not an enormous contract
for an oft-injured, K’s like mad, cannot hit over .200 for 2 years now. He looks like a bust to teams why spend $15m – they will wait to see if he can turn it around first. His glove ain’t as golden as it once was
$15 million for a catcher is NOT cheap either.
Who’s still amassed about 8 WAR over the last 3 years. It’s not as bad as your making it sound. His cap figure is only 3/36 too.
@yay exactly. Braves paid Murphy and had darnaud as backup/dh for a couple years. Why not just use Baldwin and Murphy which is a cheaper duo. Murphy can mentor or whatever and they can split DH duties to keep them healthy.
I figured it would go to Horton, though I thought Baldwin was more deserving. Glad that I was wrong!
Awful decision. Horton was much more deserving but Brave favoritism comes through again.
The only correct decision
Never Remember alias blackpink (and countless other previously banned screen names) is a Cards fan. His schtick is trolling every other team’s articles and banning any and all who dare to disagree w/his lunacy.
Hahah Braves favoritism? Put down the crack pipe.
More truth to that than you know if that troll is to be believed. He used to whine about no one respecting him because he’s a former drug addict. Blackpink is a seriously disturbed troll.
As expected. Congrats to the Braves and to Drake. Horton was definitely getting second place.
Hell yeah
Here’s why Horton didn’t get screwed: He got called up in May, and was more or less knocked around through June. Then he posted a sub-2.00 ERA in each of the final three months. That was an amazing stretch, but it was also just 73 innings—basically 5 innings per start.
Baldwin was a good offensive catcher beginning in April.
Well deserved. Interesting side note to all the ROY coverage. Only three AL catchers have ever won the award, Fisk, Alomar, Jr. and Munson, while Baldwin is the 7th NL catcher to be honored.
I think he deserved it. Very solid rookie class in both leagues.
4 Brewers rookies in the top 10; Durbin, Collins, Patrick and Miz.
Nice! I was correct!
So was I, but I was afraid I was just being a hopeful Braves fan. Feels like it’s the first thing they won this year. Good start to their off season.
They just wanted PPI to not look like a stupid idea that actually keeps prospects in the minors for longer
So the Miz got an All-Star nod but only garnered 2 points in ROY voting… talk about a fall off.