With Sean Murphy out for the next month and change, the Atlanta Braves needed to act fast to solve their growing needs at catcher. Letting Travis d’Arnaud walk this past offseason made sense at the time, but Atlanta could really use some veteran experience behind the plate. For the time being, it will be veteran farmhand Chadwick Tromp and Atlanta’s top prospect Drake Baldwin manning the dish.

The good news for the Braves is Tromp will get some valuable MLB experience this season. He had been buried on the Braves’ depth chart for years, so this will allow other teams to potentially get a better look at him should he conceivable hit the waiver wire or trade market. To me, this Murphy injury is all about the future. Atlanta has tabbed Baldwin as such, so now is the time to see what he can do.

As if Braves Country needed any more reason to get excited about the prospects of its top prospect, Brian Snitker pencilled in Baldwin to catch for Chris Sale and bat seventh in Atlanta’s spring training game vs. the Minnesota Twins on Tuesday afternoon. Sale is coming off his best season as a professional, having won the NL Cy Young and Triple Crown in his first year with the Braves in 2024.

I would like to think that Sale and Baldwin’s growing rapport will be key to the Braves out of the gate.

How Atlanta navigates the first month of the year will be crucial in its dreams of another postseason.

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Drake Baldwin could serve as Chris Sale’s catcher for the start of season

What I think will be interesting is how much of a platoon behind the dish it will be between Baldwin and Tromp while Murphy is on the mend. One would expect Murphy will carry the lion’s share of the catching responsibilities once he returns from his rib injury. That being said, I could see Braves Country falling in love with Baldwin if he proves to be ready for the show far earlier than expected.

That being said, it would not shock me if Baldwin was the player to go back down to Triple-A Gwinnett once Murphy comes off the injured list. This is because Baldwin has options at the minor league level, something we have to consider when it comes to Tromp at this stage of the game. Both will get meaningful experience with the big-league club this year, but we all know what the future entails.

The Braves will eventually pivot to Baldwin from Murphy, just like Atlanta did by pivoting to Murphy from d’Arnaud. Tromp seems to be stuck in the middle and may have his best luck catching on with another team once this Murphy injury/Baldwin ascension runs it course. In the meantime, we should expect the guy who handles the starting rotation the best between Baldwin and Tromp to start more.

If one or both play well, then this will afford Murphy plenty of time to recover from his latest injury.