Cal Raleigh’s Bat Has Finally Come To Life. Is It Too Late?

On Monday, August 24^th, Cal Raleigh, catcher for the Seattle Mariners, blasted three home runs against the Philadelphia Phillies to power the Mariners to a 9-2 victory. If you had followed the 2025 baseball season but somehow missed the entirety of the 2025 season, perhaps like some modern-day Rip Van Winkle, and then tuned in to watch this game, you might think nothing had changed from the previous year. ‘Yep. Cal Raleigh can sure rake.’ 

After all, in the 2025 season, Raleigh batted .247 but led the league with 60 HR and 125 RBI for a .948 OPS. His wins above replacement at Baseball-Reference were 7.2, while Fangraphs’ version accounted for 9.1. The discrepancy is largely accounted for by the fact that Fangraphs incorporates catcher framing into its metric, whereas 
Baseball Reference does not. 

For most of the latter half of the 2025 season, analysts around the game debated whether Raleigh should be the American League MVP over Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees. Judge eventually took the award with his gaudy stat line of .331/.457/.688 (all of which led the league) with 53 HR and 114 RBI. He also led the league in runs scored with 137. His bWAR led the majors at 9.7, and his fWAR was 10. 

In one of the closer MVP votes, Judge prevailed but just barely. Judge received 17 first-place votes with 355 total points, while Raleigh received 13 first-place votes with 335 total points. Ironically, with an electorate obsessed with the long ball, the deciding factor might very well have been batting average. It’s rare in today’s game to see a combination of power and hit tools as Judge possesses. Judge’s performance was just enough to beat out the unquestionably greatest season by a catcher in Major League Baseball history. 

Fast forward to the day of the above-mentioned Phillies game. Our hypothetical baseball fan who has slumbered for a whole year knows nothing about 2026. He would probably be stunned to see that, going into that three-homer night, Raleigh was batting .160 with 15 HR and 48 RBI. The Mariners team that came within nine outs of going to the World Series the previous season was now under .500, in third place in the AL West, and in danger of missing the postseason altogether. 

Then, boom, boom, boom, the breakout everyone had been waiting for and, frankly, given up on ever coming, arrived dramatically. 

In the seven games Raleigh has played beginning with game one of the Phillies series, Raleigh is hitting .347 with 6 HR and 7 RBI, very 2025ish. Being a catcher and taking a lot of physical punishment behind the plate, Raleigh only played two of the three games in Boston, taking the last game of the series off. 

This season, Raleigh has played 97 of the Mariners’ 140 games. Some of the missed games were for rest, but some were just to let him get a break from his abysmal performance at the plate. It cannot be stressed enough that his .172 BA is the worst in major league history for a batter who qualifies for the batting title. The modern game of baseball is generally accepted to have started in 1903. So, Raleigh’s performance at the plate is the worst in the entire 123 years of MLB. This comes off an historic season and a second-place MVP vote. It’s a testament to his leadership and his handling of the Mariners’ pitching staff that he was given enough leash to get to the current hot streak. But has it come too late?

Last week I wrote an article about some reasons Mariners fans could be optimistic going forward, with the caveat that the series against the Phillies, Toronto Blue Jays, and Boston Red Sox would be critical. Those three clubs had winning records, and none of the remaining schedule had a team with a winning record. (The Houston Astros currently have a winning record). The road trip to Toronto and Boston may prove to be the final nail in the coffin for the Mariners’ season.

After the sweep by the Blue Jays and taking two of three from the Red Sox, the Mariners’ record on the road trip was 2-5. Going into the opening game of a home series with the Athletics, their record sits at 66-74, five games behind the 71-69 Astros. Fangraphs places the M’s odds of making the playoffs at 17.4%. However, the Mariners have the easiest remaining schedule in all of baseball. Upcoming opponents currently have a combined .444 winning percentage. 

The odds are against the Mariners, but maybe Cal Raleigh can lead the way. We will find out over the final weeks of the season.