Cal Raleigh sets new precedent for MLB catchers

Photo Credit: Heraldnet.com

Every Major League Baseball season, a player takes the world by storm, whether it comes as a surprise or not. This year, Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh is taking over as the face of the 2025 MLB season.

On Monday, Raleigh launched a 379-foot home run in the ninth inning of an 11-2 win over the Minnesota Twins, marking Raleigh’s fourth consecutive game with a homer. Raleigh hit a home run during every game of last weekend’s three-game series against the Chicago Cubs, including homering twice in the series opener. Monday’s home run was Raleigh’s league-leading 32nd of the season, as he sits four ahead of New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge.

Over the weekend, Raleigh broke legendary catcher Johnny Bench’s 55-year record for most home runs by a catcher (28) before the All-Star break. Bench hit 45 home runs for the Cincinnati Reds that season (1970), recording 148 runs batted in and winning the National League’s Most Valuable Player Award.

While Raleigh has already broken one long-standing pre-All-Star break record, he is on pace to set another. The 28-year-old is on pace to hit 40 home runs before the Midsummer Classic in July, which would narrowly break Barry Bonds’ 2001 record of 39 home runs before the All-Star break. Bonds’ 2001 season was one of the greatest individual seasons in league history. Bonds hit a single-season record 73 home runs and was named NL MVP.

Raleigh is making his case for American League MVP this season, rivaling Judge, who is also having a career year. The Mariners’ catcher has a .278 batting average, 32 home runs, 68 runs batted in, and a 4.4 wins above replacement. The 28-year-old is first in the league in home runs and runs batted in and is second in the league with a 1.048 on-base plus slugging percentage.

The Cullowhee, North Carolina native has been on a tear to start the summer. Over his past 30 games, Raleigh is batting .331 with 17 home runs and 36 runs batted in. Over that span, Raleigh has been named AL Player of the Week twice, including last week when he hit .417 with five home runs and 12 runs batted in over six games.

Raleigh is setting a new precedent for catchers.

His power has been evident since he entered the league in 2021. A 2018 third-round pick out of Florida State University, the homegrown Mariners’ product hit 27 home runs in 2022, his first full season in the big leagues. He followed up that season with back-to-back 30-plus homer campaigns, hitting 30 in 2023 and 34 in 2024. He also finished with 100 runs batted in for the first time in his career during a successful 2024 season, where he finished 12th in AL MVP voting.

What makes Raleigh so different this year is his underlying numbers. He is setting career highs in batting average (.278), on-base percentage (.383), slugging percentage (.665), and on-base plus slugging percentage (1.048). Raleigh’s base on balls percentage (13.5) is a career high, and his strikeout percentage (24.9) is a career low. Coming into 2025, Raleigh never finished a season with a batting average above .232 and an on-base plus slugging percentage over .774.

What separates Raleigh from his peers is his ability to be an elite hitter and elite fielder. You rarely see a catcher who excels at the plate and behind the dish at the same time. Usually, a catcher will be an above-average hitter and below-average fielder, and sometimes it’s the opposite. Sometimes a catcher is good at both, but not to the level Raleigh is performing at.

Raleigh was the best catcher in the sport last season. Adding to his 34 home runs and 100 runs batted in, the 28-year-old won a Gold Glove as the best defensive catcher in the AL and a Platinum Glove as the best defender in the AL. Raleigh led major league catchers in games (135), putouts (1,138), runners caught stealing (32), and double plays turned (eight). He led AL catchers with 51 defensive assists.

This season, Raleigh has continued his excellence behind the plate. He is in the Top 10 in games played (59), innings played in the field (522), and putouts (492).

With three more weeks before the All-Star break, Raleigh has plenty more time to establish more pre-Midsummer Classic records. He is on pace for 68 home runs this season, which would break Judge’s single-season record for most home runs in the AL (62 in 2022) and shatter Salvador Perez’s 2021 record for most home runs hit by a catcher in a single season (48).