Cal Raleigh

There are not enough superlatives to accurately depict what Raleigh's 2025 season meant to the Seattle franchise, its fans and fantasy managers. He became just the fourth catcher to have as many as three seasons with 30 or more home runs and, in doing so, nearly hit as many home runs in 2025 as he had the previous two seasons combined. Raleigh joined the torpedo bat trend early, but that variable combined with some mechanical changes to his stance and swing helped him hit both flyballs and home runs at career-best rates. He had four different months of 10-plus home runs and had 38 before the break. If you choose to pick nits, Raleigh hit 42 points better on the road than he did at home and hit 30 points higher before the Home Run Derby *clearly* ruined his swing, as it has for so many others previously. All sarcasm aside, where do we go from here? He sustained a HR/FB rate of at least 22 percent each month of the season, but can we really project Raleigh to hit 50-plus homers in 2026? A three-year average would get us just over 40 homers, and we would have previously been giddy to get that many homers from a catcher. Yet, if Raleigh only hits 40 home runs in 2026, there will be complainers. He stays in the lineup every day with some rest at DH as well as an expressed desire to continue the one-knee approach to catching. He allowed zero passed balls in the regular season so he has earned that right. Even if Raleigh's production dropped by 50% percent in 2026, he will still out-earn nearly all catchers on the market. Read Past Outlooks