Aaron Judge is on genuinely unprecedented pace. Can Cal catch him, or should a different goal be set?
A brilliant friend of mine is a Yankees fan. This occasionally places me in the unenviable position of hearing reasonable, glowing discussion about Aaron Judge. Fans at times express exasperation at the lauding of national media flung at the feet of Judge and Shohei Ohtani, and the immense media focus upon them. I promise you, this year and the last in particular, it is merited. Short of injury, which has curtailed many Judge campaigns, the two-time MVP seems destined for a Hall of Fame-guaranteeing third crowning even if he slips off his Bonds-matching pace.
If you’ve managed to stomach those bitter, 20th century Brussels sprouts, glad tidings await. This is, indeed, an article about Cal Raleigh, the best player on the Seattle Mariners. The Big Dumper currently leads Judge in both home runs and steals in one fewer game. Death and taxes aspire to Cal’s inevitability. It’s unlikely, if physically able, that Raleigh will get a true off day this season, and it’s not clear that the Mariners could afford to provide him one. He’s second in the AL and MLB in fWAR, first in the AL in homers (second in MLB behind Ohtani). Defensively, Raleigh is once more apace for a standout campaign despite a slow start on the framing and throwing front.
It’s shaping up for Raleigh’s best season ever, but it’s so much more than that, even if Judge manages to keep the MVP out of reach.
A month ago, I wrote on Cal becoming the best catcher in Mariners history. Many bars Raleigh is sizing up for surpassing rest far higher, however. While Josh Gibson is likely the most dominant catcher in the sport’s history, since integration – and certainly since the divisional era in 1961, if you’re a fan, or you’ve cracked open a history book or played a baseball video game with any regularity, you’ll know the names that Cal is in company with at this point. With 3.2 fWAR through 53 games, the “ideal” projection forward would put a 162 game total for The Original Beef Boy at 9.8 fWAR.
Here are the catchers with 9+ fWAR seasons in MLB history:
2012 Buster Posey – 9.8 fWAR (MVP)
1972 Johnny Bench – 9.2 fWAR (MVP)
1997 Mike Piazza – 9.1 fWAR (2nd in MVP)
End of list.
Only four others have clipped 8+ fWAR – 1982 Gary Carter, 2009 Joe Mauer, 2008 Brian McCann, and Bench in his second MVP season of 1974. As an aside, if you’re a younger person and get tired of arguing with one of your elders about who was or wasn’t good, just say something nice about Johnny Bench. Likewise, if you remember watching ball in the 1970s, know that old school, new school, homeschool, Schoolhouse Rock, they all agree. Johnny Bench was unbelievable. Relish that common ground.
Of course, this is where the decimals of WAR convey a false sense of precision. FanGraphs (rightly in my opinion) grants sizable weight to a catcher’s ability to frame pitches and steal excess strikes. It’s a helluva lot easier to do that in modern day, with pitch tracking, than it is for 1970s Cincinnati Reds games, or even Piazza’s adventurous backstopping in the 90s. But this is the company that Calboy is placing himself in.
On the offensive side, Piazza is the pinnacle. His .362/.431/.638 season with the Dodgers in ‘97 came with a 183 wRC+, .452 wOBA, 40 homers, and was somehow overshadowed at times by personality gripes. Raleigh is just behind that clip by modern metrics at just a 179 wRC+ to accompany his .258/.372/.603 line and .413 wOBA. Racking up counting stats is no mean feat for Raleigh given he must contend with T-Mobile Park half his games, but weighted metrics accommodate this challenge. For Raleigh to surpass Salvador Pérez’s astonishing 48 HR campaign in 2021 would actually take less at this point, as Raleigh’s current pace would clear 58 big flies, but that’s of course no triviality.
What may determine Raleigh’s status this season will be what he can manage defensively with such an enormous workload. Last year’s Platinum Glove Award winner was excellent across the board behind the dish, but he’s had occasional inconsistencies as a thrower this season. Recent tosses have been encouragingly strong, but maintaining that blocking, framing, and baserunner management will be differentiating between a Piazza/Javy Lopez/Mauer-esque display of brilliance and the truly transcendent balance struck by Posey and Bench.
No, Cal probably can’t throw out 31 of 55 potential base thieves like Bench did in 1972 because the league is not haphazardly sending runners at a wretched 62% success rate as they were back then. League-average steal success rate is 77.6% in 2025, as both the rule changes and better managerial discretion have clubs sending players with much better odds of success, so the comparison must be against expectations, not necessarily a 1-to-1 over a 50 year gap. Casting back just over a decade to Posey’s superlative campaign, the Giants’ even year magician built his legacy on framing primarily, and that seems likeliest for Raleigh to challenge that throne.
If the MVP is one spoke of the trident Raleigh’s wielding, and the chase for the greatest catching season of all time by multiple measures is the second, the third is perhaps more astonishing given the company: could Raleigh muster the greatest season in Mariners history?
Having surpassed his manager already this season, Raleigh is encroaching upon his hitting coach, as 1995 Edgar Martinez is the only Mariner with a higher wRC+ than current Cal in a full season at 182, with a Kingdome-blessed .356/.479/.628 line and a .469 wOBA. Of course, atop the fWAR leaderboards are folks whose defensive contributions augmented their deeds at the dish. It’s simply not an easy list to crack.
FanGraphs
And yet, crack it Cal seems all but certain to, perhaps shattering it entirely. That’s the company he’s in with the season he’s had thus far. As Dave Valle gleefully exclaimed on the broadcast Tuesday night, there’s no longer much debate that Cal is the sport’s best active catcher. The players he’s competing with need only a single name. Raleigh is chasing Judge and Ohtani, Bench and Posey, Griffey and A-Rod. They’d better run quick.