After Mickey Mantle, Cal Raleigh Now Challenges Aaron Judge

Cal Raleigh is challenging the biggest names in baseball, New York Yankees legends. Sunday, he tied Mickey Mantle. Now he’s chasing down Aaron Judge.

The Mariners’ catcher smashed his 54th homer of the season, pulling even with Mantle’s single-year record for a switch-hitter. He’s got 12 games left to pass Ken Griffey Jr.’s Seattle record of 56 and maybe close the gap on Judge in the MVP race.

Raleigh’s MVP challenge is real. 

He is hitting .244 with a .359 on-base and a .577 slug, piling up 115 RBIs and even swiping 14 bags. His 8.0 WAR ranks second in the American League behind only Judge. He owns a 157 wRC+, the kind of bat you don’t expect from a catcher logging this many innings.

Statcast tells the same story. He’s barreling nearly 20 percent of his swings and producing hard contact on more than half of them. His average exit velocity sits at 92 mph. None of this is cheap. Raleigh is punishing the ball, and he’s been doing it all season.

What separates him from Judge is the position. Raleigh won both a Gold Glove and a Platinum Glove last year, and he’s still grading out above-average as a framer with positive marks on throws. Catchers aren’t supposed to hit like Judge. Raleigh is.

Judge still leads on pure production. He has 48 homers, a .447 OBP, 199 wRC+, and 8.7 WAR. He’s the favorite. But he’s doing it from right field and the DH role while nursing an elbow injury.  Raleigh is grinding behind the plate while putting up numbers that echo Mantle and Griffey. That context matters.

The math says Raleigh is on pace for 58 homers. That would give him the all-time record for a switch-hitter, the Mariners’ single-season crown, and one of the greatest offensive seasons a catcher has ever produced. If it comes while Seattle clinches its first division title since 2001, the MVP debate may not be as one-sided as it looked in July.

With Judge priced at –1000 and Raleigh at +550 on popular sportsbooks, the gap is still meaningful, but not insurmountable.

Aaron Judge is still the front-runner. But Cal Raleigh has put himself in the conversation. The real winner is baseball and the fans that get to watch these two put up epic numbers down the stretch.