Cal Raleigh finished 2025 as the greatest offensive catcher in baseball history: 60 home runs, a .948 OPS, and a place among just seven players ever to reach that mark. Four months later, the Seattle Mariners have that same catcher sitting at 10 HR and a .569 OPS through 42 games — a 384-point OPS drop that has no clear historical parallel after a 60-homer season. The numbers demand an explanation.
The 2025 Season Nobody Can Take Away
Before getting into the slide, it’s worth remembering what Raleigh actually did last year. His 60 home runs, .247 AVG, 125 RBIs, and 110 runs scored across 159 games didn’t just make him the tenth player in MLB history with a 60-homer season — they shattered the all-time record for catchers. The previous mark was 48, set by Salvador Pérez in 2021.
Raleigh also became the first switch-hitter in MLB history to hit at least 20 home runs from each side of the plate in the same season, won the 2025 Home Run Derby, and started the American League All-Star Game behind the plate. He had already signed a six-year, $105 million extension with Seattle back in March of that year. Everything pointed toward a dynasty.
A 2026 Slump Without Historical Comparison
The closest reference point for a collapse following a 60-plus homer season is Mark McGwire in 2000: after 65 home runs in 1999, McGwire managed just 32 in 89 games, limited by serious knee and back injuries. Even so, his OPS during that stretch never fell below .840.
Raleigh is in different territory. His .569 OPS through mid-May 2026 — paired with a .165 AVG — represents the largest year-over-year OPS drop among all regular players in the league. It’s worth noting that the .840 floor cited for McGwire’s post-60 season couldn’t be independently verified through Baseball-Reference or FanGraphs, so that specific comparison carries a caveat. But Raleigh’s numbers are well below any known precedent regardless.
An oblique injury kept him out for a month, and his return was rocky: he went through a stretch of 43 consecutive plate appearances without a hit in May, right in the middle of his recovery. That run isn’t representative of his full season, but it does show that snapping back to 2025 form hasn’t been automatic.
Regression, Injury, or Both? What the Advanced Data Says
The real question is whether this is the expected statistical regression that follows any 60-homer season — those kinds of results always carry some unsustainable elements — or whether something deeper is going on.
The oblique injury complicates the read. The oblique is the muscle that drives rotational power in a swing, and losing it for a month doesn’t just cost time — it can affect mechanics for weeks after a player returns. Statcast data from Baseball Savant, specifically exit velocity, barrel percentage, and wOBA, will tell us whether Raleigh’s contact has changed structurally or whether his 2026 numbers are mostly the product of bad luck and post-injury rust.
With just 42 games in the books, the sample is still too small for a definitive verdict. What is concrete: Raleigh is under contract through 2031, Seattle made a major bet on him, and the Mariners need the catcher who dismantled the American League in 2025 to find something close to that level again. The second half of 2026 will tell us whether this is just a rough start to forget — or the beginning of something more concerning.
