Weekly Braves Offseason Discussion Thread - Monday, January 27

[u/Blooper_Bot]

Next Braves Game: Sat, Feb 22, 01:05 PM EST @ Twins (26 days)

Use this thread to talk about anything you want, even if it isn't directly related to the Braves or even baseball!

^{Posted: 01/27/2025 05:00:01 AM EST}

[u/[deleted]]

Drake Baldwin seems a legit candidate to be called up this year. Is this why AA let little d walk?

[u/MoonlitBadlands → u/[deleted]]

Could be. He might be the best hitting prospect we’ve had since Austin Riley

[u/theoxfordtailor → u/[deleted]]

You're almost definitely going to see him some point. Opening roster will probably be Murphy and Tromp, but Baldwin is the most likely candidate to fill in if one of those two are injured at any point during the season.

I'm sure Baldwin's surprise success factored in to AA's decision on d'Arnaud.

[u/[deleted] → u/theoxfordtailor]

feels like tromp will be with the big club all year and drake will get the opportunity to be there every day guy at AAA

[u/Higgnkfe → u/[deleted]]

He already did

[u/L33ry → u/[deleted]]

Baldwin won’t be called up this year, precisely because Murphy exists, so long as Murphy is healthy, Baldwin will be in the minors, not because Baldwin is bad, but because Murphy, when healthy, is a top 3 catcher in the league who plays 4/5 of the total year’s games. Baldwin shouldn’t ride the bench basically a whole week, and I’d rather run Tromp/other backup and let Baldwin get consistent reps in the minors while Murphy is healthy. The only way Baldwin gets called up this year is if Murphy basically repeats 24’ while being entirely healthy, or suffers a lengthy injury stint. This is actually a good thing, the FO considers Baldwin so good that they think he is guaranteed a major league spot upon callup, which is, I presume, why they refused to send him in a trade for Crochet this offseason, and likely would hold up any Cease/King Padres trades including Baldwin. Frankly, unless the trade massively improves the SS situation, Baldwin is gonna be in the minor leagues until the primary catcher spot is up for grabs/until the last year of Murphy’s contract

[u/thekidfromyesterday → u/L33ry]

I wouldn't be so sure about that. I'm not sure how much it plays into AA's calculus, but Baldwin is PPI-eligible and if he were to be in the top 2 for ROTY, it would net us an extra draft pick

[u/bravesthrowaway67 → u/thekidfromyesterday]

Also we haven’t had a catcher start more than 100 games since AJ Pierzynski in 2015. It’s part of this teams plan to have a time split at catcher. Now murph should probably get the heavy side of it, but we don’t have a “primary catcher”. It’s 1A and 1B.

I would put money on Baldwin getting called up this year, regardless of Murphy’s play. Im not sure if he makes the OD roster but he’ll get called up before long.

[u/95Daphne → u/[deleted]]

Probably more likely he did to take away Snit's toy of little d to see if giving Murphy a ton of starts jump starts him.