Where Has Cal Raleigh Gone?

Just one day before the Seattle Mariners kicked off their 2025 season, they signed catcher Cal Raleigh to a six-year, $105 million contract extension that would keep him in Seattle through the 2030 season. The organization and the city of Seattle got to witness one of the best seasons by a catcher as Raleigh mashed 60 home runs, drove in 125 runs, and posted a .948 OPS.

His dominant and somewhat unexpected 2025 season led to his first career All-Star selection, along with taking home the American League Silver Slugger award for the catcher position. Raleigh’s 60 home runs led all of the majors and wound up being the most home runs hit by a player in a single season in Seattle Mariners history. He also claimed the title of most home runs by a catcher and switch-hitter in MLB history.

Raleigh’s terrific first season under his new contract far surpassed the expectations of the Mariners front office, as well as the entire baseball community. The Mariners had a great season as a whole, taking home the American League West crown and battling out a seven-game series with the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League Championship Series, where they would ultimately go down in defeat.

The baseball world got to witness Raleigh take his game to another level day in and day out. He ended up finishing second in American League MVP voting, where he lost to Yankees superstar Aaron Judge.

Fast forward to 2026, where the Mariners currently sit seven games under .500 and 3.5 games out of a Wild Card spot, and Raleigh himself has fallen off a cliff. His production is nowhere near what we saw last year. His offensive and defensive metrics have seen a massive decline, and it’s worthwhile digging into what’s been wrong with Raleigh this season.

Raleigh’s Power Has Simply Evaporated

The flashiest part of Raleigh’s 2025 surge is the amount of sheer power he displayed as he hit 60 home runs over the span of the season. Now, with the trade deadline in the rearview mirror and the Mariners 119 games into the season, Raleigh has only managed to power out 12 home runs. Take into account that he missed a chunk of time from May 14 to June 16 with a right oblique strain, but his power just hasn’t been present even without the injury.

In 2025, Raleigh’s pure power metrics were the best part of his game, as he had a .547 expected slugging percentage (96th percentile), a 91.3 mph average exit velocity (79th percentile), a 19.5% barrel rate (99th percentile), and a 49.6% hard-hit rate (85th percentile). While he’s still done a good job getting the barrel to the baseball this season at an excellent 13.1% clip, every other metric mentioned above has gone downhill.

Even though Raleigh has been able to barrel up the baseball, there hasn’t been as much pop in his bat, which has resulted in an average exit velocity of 88.9 mph (43rd percentile) and a deficient 34.3% hard-hit rate (21st percentile). It’s weird to see because his elite bat speed still remains the same, but there may be another issue lying under the hood — his ability to hit the fastball.

Raleigh’s production this season against offspeed pitches lines up with his 2025 numbers, while his offensive numbers against breaking balls have dropped, but it isn’t the glaring concern. The biggest red flag in his profile right now is his severe inability to hit the fastball.

In 2025, Raleigh hit 39 fastballs for home runs to go along with a .254 batting average and .662 slugging percentage. Looking at 2026, his batting average has fallen to a .139 mark, along with his slugging percentage against the pitch type plummeting down to a .242 clip. Raleigh has also only hit five home runs off fastballs this year.

Opposing teams have noticed this trend and have taken it into their game planning — it’s undoubtedly been working in their favor.

In 2025, Raleigh saw fastballs 49.5% of the time, but that mark has increased dramatically to a 55.4% rate this year. It doesn’t take long these days for advanced scouting departments to figure out a player’s flaws and immediately use them to their advantage.

Can He Turn His Season Around?

In order for Raleigh to turn his 2026 campaign around, he’s gonna have to make some adjustments in order to hit the fastball like he has in the past. For someone who generated so much power and production off a singular pitch type and saw that production almost dissolve the next season, it’s quite alarming.

His swing-and-miss issues still exist now as they did last year, and that might always be a part of Raleigh’s game. Even with the poor plate discipline, he is still drawing walks at an excellent 12% rate, similar to 2025. Defensively, his framing and ability to throw out baserunners have taken a big hit, which signals maybe the power isn’t all that’s wrong with Raleigh.

While he still hasn’t shown recent improvements at the plate, there are still two more months of regular-season baseball left for Raleigh to try and make the best of what’s left. The Mariners will need his bat as they try to get back into the postseason.