Most teams around the league, including the Atlanta Braves, tend to keep things quiet during the holidays. A couple days before or immediately after is fair game, but the holidays themselves are generally quiet unless something unplanned happens like an injury or an arrest. However, one team did not care at all about everyone's Christmas plans, but it could provide the Braves with an opening when it comes to Drake Baldwin's future.
We know that Atlanta loves to lock up their core guys when they can. Coming off a Rookie of the Year win, Baldwin seems like a logical candidate to get some sort of extension. The Braves locked up Michael Harris II, Spencer Strider, Ronald Acuña Jr., Ozzie Albies, and Austin Riley well before arbitration was a consideration, but coming up with an extension number for Baldwin is a bit tricky.
Thankfully, Atlanta may have gotten an unexpected hand from the one team that didn't seem to notice that it was Christmas Day on Thursday. In the midst of the Christmas celebrations, the Athletics extended Tyler Soderstrom and his new deal could be the foundation for talks between the Braves and Baldwin.
Tyler Soderstrom's extension could give Braves the basis for extension talks with Drake Baldwin
Comparing Soderstrom to Baldwin isn't perfect, but it feel like a could ballpark when it comes to estimating a contract extension. Soderstrom doesn't really play catcher anymore and has been in the league a couple years, but both put up roughly the same OPS in 2025 (.810 for Baldwin vs. .820 for Soderstrom) and Soderstrom didn't have much of a track record of performance before last season. Baldwin plays a more premium position, but Soderstrom has more experience, so they actually get to close to a wash in terms of value pretty quickly.
If you were hoping that Atlanta was going to get away with extending cheap, you may want to brace for disappointment. In an ideal world, giving Baldwin something similar to Alejandro Kirk's extension would be preferable. However, seven years and $86 million is still just a hair over $12 million a year and that is very reasonable for a player of Baldwin's quality to give up his arbitration years as well as delay his free agency for a while.
The problem comes with the fact that all of the Braves' long-term commitments are starting to add up. Atlanta still needs to figure out an Acuña Jr. extension at some point, after all. However, their payroll starts freeing up after next season and there is a lot of wisdom in locking up their catcher of the future at a reasonable AAV. Atlanta knows better than most that they can't keep every player, but Baldwin feels particularly important and now they may have the blueprint to locking him up.