Here, in the stretch run of a grueling journey his peers can barely comprehend, Cal Raleigh shot down the idea that he is accomplishing anything extraordinary.
“Catchers usually are pretty tired at this point in the year,” he said in a recent phone interview, “but you could say the same thing for everybody.”
Lately, that has been the standard line from the Seattle Mariners’ star slugger, even though it’s clear that he is not everybody. On Wednesday, he became just the seventh player to hit 60 home runs in a single season. He joined an exclusive club that includes Babe Ruth, a feat impressive enough on its own. But within baseball, Raleigh has drawn another level of admiration. None of those who came before him have faced a greater degree of difficulty.
Raleigh is the only switch-hitter among the members of the 60-home run club, meaning he has had to deal with the quirks and intricacies of maintaining two swings over the course of a long season. And even more notably, he is the only player in that class of elite sluggers to ply his trade behind the plate. He hit his 60th homer in his American League-leading 120th game as a catcher, the most mentally draining and physically demanding position on the diamond.
No position is more vulnerable to the bumps, bruises, aches and pains that can derail an entire season. Yet Raleigh has crafted a year for the ages, one that has lifted an entire franchise, assaulted the record books, and added a splash of intrigue to this season’s race for the American League’s MVP.
Raleigh, MLB’s home run leader, is second in the majors behind only Aaron Judge in FanGraphs’ wins above replacement metric. Raleigh won the Home Run Derby, smashed Salvador Perez’s single-season record for most home runs by a catcher (48) and cruised past Mickey Mantle’s record for most home runs by a switch-hitter (54). He helped his Mariners clinch the AL West for the first time since 2001.
Raleigh has been the team’s fulcrum, its most dependable and prolific player. And he has done his best to deflect all the acclaim, attention and “M-V-P” chants that have rained down on him in Seattle.
When asked whether he had ever envisioned a season like this, Raleigh replied, “I don’t think so. I mean, I just try to be the best I can be.” That night, he eclipsed Mantle’s record.
Three years ago, Raleigh was a burgeoning Seattle folk hero who hit a blast that broke the Mariners’ 21-year playoff drought. “They should’ve, if they haven’t already, given him the keys to the city,” Robbie Ray, a former teammate, said this summer.
Now Raleigh has become a full-fledged superstar, the aw-shucks son of a college coach who perfects two swings between meetings with pitchers and acts like it’s no big deal.
Others in the game will tell you otherwise. They say over and over that what Raleigh is doing as a catcher is special, worthy of both praise and end-of-season hardware.
“I’ll show you how tough it is — look how many times it’s been done,” Texas Rangers manager Bruce Bochy, a former major league catcher, said of Raleigh’s season. “It’s pretty incredible what he’s done. He’s a workhorse. It’s kind of an old-school thing. You look at Johnny Bench and Carlton Fisk and those guys. I’m sure he’s been beat up at times, too. Foul tips and things that go with catching every day. And to be able to do what he’s doing, it’s really incredible.”
If Raleigh will not indulge in the spectacle of his season, allow those he admires to do the campaigning for him.
“I think he’s the MVP of the American League,” said Perez, the Kansas City Royals’ All-Star backstop. “I have a lot of respect for Aaron Judge and I know he’s a good hitter, too, but to be a catcher and prepare the game plan, help the pitcher, catch well, throw well and hit 50-plus homers? Ha!”
This season, Raleigh has been focusing his work off a high tee — a way to make sure that he is moving vertically through his swing rather than drifting away from the ball. That means swings from the left, then swings from the right.
The routine has paid off. Raleigh has hit more home runs right-handed (22 through Friday) this year than at any point in his major league career. And on Wednesday, he hit his 37th and 38th from the left side. For context: Only seven major leaguers have hit even 38 homers this year; Raleigh is the only one of the group digging into both sides of the batter’s box.
“It’s a lot of work to take care of two swings,” teammate Eugenio Suárez said.
Raleigh also plays a position that requires perhaps the most mental acuity in the sport.
Raleigh, who signed a six-year contract extension worth $105 million before the season, has appeared in all but three of Seattle’s games this season. He ranks third in the majors in innings behind the plate. He ranked first last year, when he won the American League Platinum Glove award.
Raleigh has hardly slowed. He has slugged 10 home runs and has an on-base plus slugging percentage over 1.000 in September. And while he downplays the level of physical and mental exhaustion he is experiencing, those who have squatted behind the plate and called pitches and absorbed foul tips every day for six months do not.
How must Raleigh really be feeling? How is any catcher feeling near the finish line?
“Like you’ve been in a fight for the last six months,” said Guardians manager Stephen Vogt, a former big league catcher. “It’s the mystery bruise game. You wake up and you can’t remember where it came from. Your legs are Jell-O. Your body just aches. It hurts.”
Sandy Alomar Jr. can relate to a catcher enjoying a season in which he can do no wrong. In 1997, Alomar never slumped. He had a 30-game hitting streak. He hit the game-winning home run to capture All-Star Game MVP honors in front of his home crowd in Cleveland. He saved the Indians’ season with a game-tying homer off Mariano Rivera in Game 4 of an AL division series. He finished with a career-high 21 homers, plus five more in the postseason. He logged a .324 average and a .900 OPS.
All of that makes what Raleigh has done that much more impressive to Alomar, a six-time All-Star, a rookie of the year winner and the owner of a Gold Glove award.
“What he’s doing is extremely ridiculous,” Alomar said. “That many home runs as a catcher is hard to do. In the second half, I was getting tired.”
Before the 2024 season, Raleigh worked with Cleveland catcher Austin Hedges in Phoenix on his receiving, blocking and framing. At the end of the season, Raleigh won the Platinum Glove. His defense has not been at the same elite level this season, but it remains strong by many measures. He has saved seven runs above average with his pitch framing and grades out at two runs above average with his arm.
No catcher has spent more innings behind the plate the past two seasons.
Raleigh and Judge, who Wednesday became the fourth player to hit at least 50 home runs in four seasons, will create fierce debates in what could be a tight race for the American League’s MVP award.
Judge’s numbers for the New York Yankees are historic in their own right, and he leads Raleigh in most offensive categories, other than home runs. But to many who have worn the gear and donned the mask, Raleigh should win the MVP for a simple reason.
He is a catcher, and no one has ever seen a season like this before.
“We’re talking about one of the greatest seasons any player’s ever had, given all of the intangibles, all the things that you have to do,” Hedges said. “I am proud. I’m sure all of us are proud. Just being like, ‘That’s possible?’”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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