Drake Baldwin's Pace Early in Braves Season is Crazier Than You Think

Just one season after Cal Raleigh delivered his reign of terror over in the American League, Atlanta Braves' Drake Baldwin is on a similar pace over in the National League.

He's been seeing the as well as anybody could in the modern game. He's only had one game where he hasn't reached base. Eleven of 13 games have seen him record at least one total base. This effort is why Baldwin is leading the National League in home runs (five), RBIs (15), total bases (33) and runs scored (12).

This league-leading performance has him on a mind-boggling pace. Over the course of a 162-game season, at this pace, rounding down to the nearest whole number, Baldwin would finish with 62 home runs and 186 RBIs.

For the record, this is not an attempt to indicate that these numbers are likely to be reached. Far from it. If he continues at this pace in June or July, then we can talk. Just to get an idea of how tough it would be, let's look at some other benchmarks from other players in MLB history.

From a home runs standpoint, in this scenario, he will have hit two more than Cal Raleigh did last season and matched Aaron Judge's mark in 2022. Matching Judge would mean Baldwin would tie for the seventh most home runs in a season.

At this pace, he'd drive in the second-most runs ever. Hall of Fame centerfielder Hack Wilson collected 191 RBIs in 1930. The last time a hitter drove in at least 160 runs was Sammy Sosa in 2001. Judge is the only player since 2009 to reach 140 RBIs in a year, which he reached in 2024.

This is all to simply give perspective as to how good he has looked at the plate to start the season. They're all quickly building his case to be an All-Star in Philadelphia this summer. The fact that he's a catcher and seeing significant time at the position would arguably help build his MVP case, the same way it helped build Raleigh's a year ago, in a race he narrowly lost.

Given the ebbs and flows of a season, Baldwin will likely slump for a bit. However, being more experienced now, the valleys will likely be shallower, and he'll be quicker to bounce back. He has sharp discipline at the plate and a swing that allows him to cover much of the strike zone with ease, especially in the lower and outside halves of it. If a pitcher allows Baldwin to get extended, it's game over.

A 30-home run, 100-RBI season is a reasonable expectation with how he's hitting right now. That's a classic All-Star benchmark in the counting stats department. That's mathematically about half as good as the current pace he's at. Maybe he does even better. We'll see.

The fact that finishing the season at half the pace he's currently at would still mean an All-Star-caliber year shows that he's looking that good. The Braves have been off to a polar opposite start to last season, and Baldwin has been a key cog in the machine.