It was a good day for Drake Baldwin, as he got a spring training invite and landed on ESPN’s top 100 prospects list. It does appear that he will start the season at AAA, especially after The Athletic’s David O’Brien reported that Sean Murphy is expected to start roughly 80% of the Braves’ games this season, which would be quite the workload for a catcher. That said, even at a lesser rate, it still might make more sense to give Baldwin more reps at AAA and wait on starting his service clock. He was really impressive in the minors last season, finishing in AAA with a 135 wRC+ over 334 plate appearances at the level. He will be an exciting one to watch on the prospect side this year and shouldn’t be far off from the majors, even as the role may be difficult to work out at the moment.

Braves News

Drake Baldwin and Nacho Alvarez found their way onto Kiley McDaniel’s top 100 prospects list at ESPN, with Baldwin checking in at 44.

Sam took a look at some of the potentially available relief pitcher options that the Braves could have interest in to fill out their bullpen.

Meanwhile, Austin took a look at the current bullpen options and dove into Daysbel Hernandez in particular, who could be in line for a big role this year.

Drake Baldwin was the headliner on a fairly unsurprising list of 16 non-roster invites to the Braves’ Spring Training.

MLB News

Ha-Seong Kim signed a 2 year $29 million deal with the Rays that included an opt-out after the first year. The opt out was likely the part that the Braves were unwilling to give for the infielder who had been linked to the Braves all off-season.

Star reliever Carlos Estevez signed a $22 million 2 year deal with the Royals, after the Braves had reportedly shown interest in his services.

The Reds traded a fringe prospect for reliever Taylor Rogers from the San Francisco Giants, with substantial cash coming with Rogers to the Reds.

Reliever Ryne Stanek, who had recently been rumored to be of interest to Atlanta signed a 1 year $4.5 million deal with the Mets.