After a phenomenal rookie season that saw him take home National League Rookie of the Year honors, catcher Drake Baldwin is primed for a big season with the Atlanta Braves. On Thursday, new manager Walt Weiss announced ahead of opening day that for now, Baldwin will slot in as the DH in games against left-handed starting pitchers.
In his 2025 debut the 24-year-old former top prospect slugged 19 home runs, drove in 80 runners, and posted an .810 OPS across 446 plate appearances. Most notably, the left-handed catcher had positive splits against left-handed pitchers: in 95 plate appearances against southpaws, Baldwin had a .299 batting average and an .818 OPS.
As a result, Weiss is penciling Baldwin in at DH for Friday's opener against Royals LHP Cole Ragans, and switch-hitter Jonah Heim will start at catcher in his place. Weiss said that "this is the way [I'll] likely go against lefty starters for a while" (h/t Mark Bowman, MLB.com).
Understandably, the Braves want Baldwin in the lineup as much as possible. While he was fortunate enough to avoid any sort of injury last season, Baldwin still only appeared in 120 games.
Teams are often wary of overexerting their catchers given the physical demands of the position, but it seems that Weiss' plan to DH Baldwin against left-handers is intended to give him occasional rest while keeping his bat in the lineup.
It's a wise way to deploy Heim as well: across parts of six seasons, Heim has struggled against right-handed pitching (.626 OPS in 1639 plate appearances) but has been a capable bat against left-handed pitching with a .733 OPS in 562 appearances.
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Entering his first season with the Braves, Heim has been unable to reproduce the success he had in his 2023 season with the Texas Rangers, the only season in which he was above-average at the plate. But his positive splits against left-handers have a large enough sample size to believe in them.
That said, the Braves' catcher arrangement isn't quite a platoon but rather an effective way to get Baldwin a break from catching while leaning on Heim's strengths.
Baldwin appeared in just 12 games as the Braves' DH in 2025, but across those 12 games he totaled 2 home runs, 12 RBI, a .313 batting average, and an .886 OPS, which suggests that he'll be able to handle the occasional start there from time to time.
