Throughout the season, the CBS Sports MLB experts will bring you a weekly Batting Around roundtable breaking down pretty much anything. The latest news, a historical question, thoughts about the future of baseball, all sorts of stuff. Last week we debated the biggest star who will be moved at the trade deadline (other than Rafael Devers). This week we’re going to tackle Cal Raleigh’s incredible season.
Dayn Perry: Obviously, I’m a believer in Raleigh’s power. It’s backed by very strong batted-ball metrics, and he’s not exactly new to this (he’s now logged three-straight 30-homer seasons). There’s now doubting the brilliance of his season thus far, and I expect he’ll break Sal Perez’s record for homers in a season by a catcher (48). However, I think he’ll lose out to Aaron Judge or maybe Shohei Ohtani or someone else in the overall home run chase this season. Raleigh’s a catcher, of course, and that’s the most rigorous position in baseball. Fatigue will surely set in at some point and exact a price at the plate. Indeed, his power numbers have declined in the second half across his entire career. Raleigh mind up winning the MVP, but I don’t think he’s winning the home run crown.
R.J. Anderson: I’ll say no. It’s not really about Raleigh as an individual, but more about the rigors and risks of catching — something that doesn’t exist for an outfielder or a shortstop or whatever else. He could take a foul ball off his hand tomorrow and have it impact his offensive output for the rest of the year. There’s just too much working against any particular catcher for me to ever feel confident in their chances of leading in a counting statistic, but especially one like home runs.
Mike Axisa: You know what? I’ll say yes. The position and the ballpark work against him, for sure, but Raleigh has already proven himself to be supremely durable (he led MLB in games caught in 2023 and 2024) and he’s only 28, so right smack in his physical prime. To me, the Mariners are neither good enough to run away with a postseason berth nor bad enough to get buried in the standings. They’ll hang around the race all year and that means Raleigh will stay in the lineup right through Game 162, either at catcher or DH. He might be the rare catcher who gets 700 plate appearances this year.
Only two catchers have ever led baseball in home runs: Hall of Famer Johnny Bench (1970 and 1972) and Salvador Perez (2021). Perez tied for the league lead with Vladimir Guerrero Jr., while Bench led the league outright both times. Raleigh has gotten off to a great head start (he’s having one of the all-time greatest power seasons period, not just for a catcher) and I will bet on his track record of durability and the power of the age-28 peak season. My only concern is whether the workload catches up to Raleigh, not whether his power dries up at some point. I think he’ll rise to the occasion and beat out Judge, Ohtani, et al for the homer crown.
