Cal Raleigh has been rewriting the rules of baseball all year, but it came to a head on Monday night, when he became the first catcher in MLB history to hit 50 home runs in a season.
The Seattle Mariners star, the major-league home run leader has managed to combine power, batting average, and plate discipline. As he has pursued Aaron Judge’s American League home run record, 62, headlines have revolved around him launching balls, but more impressive to me is how he has hit for power without sacrificing contact and batting average — much like Judge has done himself over the past few years.
In fact, Raleigh’s batting average has increased to .245 this season after hovering in the .220-to-.235 range in 2023 and 2024. Not bad for a home-run hitter, considering the league in general has consistently batted below .250 over the past decade or so. But what’s more impressive is how we have seen him create those increases while becoming the premier power hitter he is today.
Typically, when guys actively try to hit home runs, they strike out often and have lower contact rates. Think of Joey Gallo, who is famous for his high strikeout rate but ranked in the top-three in the MLB in hard-hit percentage and average exit velocity. And think of Kyle Schwarber, who is closing in on 50 home runs and has an elite, 60 percent hard-hit rate this season but bats .247 — actually an increase from his .232 career average.
That’s how it’s supposed to work. Players in general, let alone catchers, aren’t supposed to hit for power and average simultaneously. They’re not supposed to boost both in one year. A player who hit .220 with 34 home runs one year isn’t supposed to come back the next and have a .245 average with 50 homers with a month left.
Like Judge, Raleigh is proving the theory that home-run hitters are inevitably susceptible to strikeouts –– widely accepted as reality for years –– wrong. For years, he has been more selective at the plate, abandoning the “I’ll swing at everything and hope for quality contact on a few” mindset. For instance, his strikeout rate has dropped from 35 percent to 25 percent since 2021. In that same time frame, his walk rate increased by nearly 9 percent and his hard hit rate increased by 15 percent — this season his rate is about 50 percent.
That’s the key. Too often, in accepting that many plate appearances will end as a walk, strikeout, or home run, players like Schwarber or Gallo limit their own value. Home runs are exhilarating, but hunting that exhilaration will result in empty at-bats — and this is what separates Raleigh. It’s discipline. It’s finding balances between hitting for contact and hitting for power and between waiting for a good pitch and swinging for launch angle.
In some ways, Raleigh mirrors Judge — not in raw average, but in his ability to combine patience, power, and consistent contact. The result? When he doesn’t homer, Raleigh still forces action. His in-play rate of 58 percent outpaces Judge’s 53 percent, which means he puts more pressure on defenses even in at-bats that don’t end with a long ball. By putting the ball in play — via grounders, line drives, and fly balls — he turns those moments into runs others leave on the field.
And that, more than the record chase or the highlight-hogging home runs, explains why he leads the American League in RBIs. He’s batting .237 and has 14 homers with runners in scoring position, showing he delivers when it matters most. Even though that’s just above league average, when combined with his power, it puts his production on another level. It’s a microcosm of his approach at the plate: offer selectively, offer hard, and make contact.
In other words, Raleigh isn’t just evolving into a classic slugger. He’s more valuable than that. He’s redefining what a home-run hitter can be: a power bat who doesn’t have to live with empty at-bats, a force who can change games with single swings, and a player who delivers in the moments that matter most.