DataBaseball
2026
Drake Baldwin headshot

Players · B · C · 2026

Drake Baldwin

Age
25
B/T
L/R
Height
6' 0"
Weight
225 lb
Number
#30
Born
March 28, 2001 in Madison, WI, United States
MLB debut
March 27, 2025
Drafted
2022, round 3
College
Missouri State
High school
Madison West
dbWAR
7.3
2 season(s)
PA
610
AVG
.281
OBP
.356
SLG
.452
wRC+
124
100 = avg

Drake Baldwin is a catcher for the Atlanta Braves. So far in 2026 he has hit 24 home runs and knocked in 77 RBIs, notching 153 hits across 610 plate appearances in 137 games. His batting average is .281, 15.3% higher than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .356 clip and slugged .452, for an OPS of .808, 12.4% higher than the league mark of .719 — the second best on his team, and 61st of 462 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 91.4 mph off the bat, hit 50.2% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 11.6% of them and made contact on 75.5% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 124 wRC+ puts his offence 24% above average. That comes to 3.8 dbWAR — +19.0 runs with the bat, -0.6 for the ballpark, -0.8 on the bases, -2.4 on double plays, +2.6 for the position he plays, against replacement level. It includes no fielding: defensive runs are proprietary and are not estimated here, so the figure credits playing a demanding position but not playing it well.

League context

Percentile among qualified batters, 2026.

wRC+124
wOBA.356
ISO.171
BB%9.0%
WAR3.8

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These terms sum to +36.7 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR. There is no fielding term.

Batting+19.0Ballpark-0.6Baserunning-0.8Double plays-2.4Position+2.6Replacement+18.9
BattingBallparkBaserunningDouble playsPositionReplacement

WAR by season

3.81.90.02526

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
2026ATL1376101532477355132.281.356.452.171.3319.0%21.6%.356+19.01243.8
2025ATL123446111198003868.274.341.469.195.2898.5%15.2%.352+13.81273.5

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Batting by the hand the pitcher throws with, 2026. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
SplitPAABHHRBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBAK%
vs LHP2232034971749.241.309.379.30922.0%
vs RHP387341104173883.305.382.496.38421.4%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 414 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 414 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
11.6%
48 barrels
Exit velocity
91.4
mph average
Max exit velo
112.8
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
50.2%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
38.6%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
11.2°
average
Barrel rate11.6%
Exit velocity91.4 mph
Hard hit rate50.2%
Contact rate75.5%

A barrel is a batted ball whose exit velocity and launch angle have historically produced at least a .500 average and 1.500 slugging — 98 mph within 26–30°, widening to 8–50° by 116 mph. Reconstructed from Statcast's published anchor points, which reproduces them exactly; the interior is within a degree. Sweet spot (8–32°) is an exact definition.

Hot and cold zones

Batting average by pitch location, 2026.

.111.333.206.182.21723 AB.30030 AB.13023 AB.34047 AB.37564 AB.41943 AB.19431 AB.39164 AB.28132 AB
Below averageLeague averageAbove average
Batting average by location of the pitch that ended each plate appearance, catcher's view. The bordered square is the strike zone; the outer band is chase territory. Cells with fewer than 8 at-bats are left grey rather than shown as signal. League average on the same attribution is .243.

Situational hitting

How Drake Baldwin hits by base state, outs, score and late-game pressure — each read against his own season line.

Split by
By who is on base when he comes up. The season line is repeated as the baseline.
SituationPAABHHRRBIBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBA
All situations610——————.281.356.452.356
Bases empty3633298720213285.264.333.474.354
Runner on first1151063015728.283.339.349.313
Runners on247215664562347.307.389.419.360
RISP132109363511619.330.432.486.403

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2026.

Head to head

Put Drake Baldwin beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
Drake Baldwin

Similar players

Nearest 2026 seasons by discipline, contact, power and speed, on rate statistics rather than totals.

How these are computed

wOBA uses linear weights measured from this season's own play-by-play rather than published constants, and wRC+ is park-adjusted against that same league. dbWAR is our own open implementation — not fWAR or bWAR — and the full derivation, including its simplifications, is on the methodology page.