Despite a historic season that will set the standard for catchers for years to come, the Mariners Cal Raleigh fell short of the AL MVP award for 2025, which went to the Yankees Aaron Judge, who earned 17 first-place votes to Raleighs 13. Despite being an outcome many Mariners fans were prepared for as soon as it became clear this would be a two-horse race, it still feels disappointing for fans who watched Raleigh every day and understand what he meant to the 2025 Mariners, historic in their own right.
Judge was, clearly, the superior hitter; he had a monster offensive season and beat Raleigh in virtually every statistical category outside of home runs and RBI. His numbers are gaudy, as theyve been since 2022, when he hit his record-setting 62 homers, welcoming his 30s with a newfound barrage of homers. Judges one bête noir has occasionally been his health, but he only missed 10 games this season. If Most Valuable Player is defined as the best hitter in baseball, that is easily Judge. Any team would be made significantly better with him; losing him would make his team significantly worse. Judges 10.1 fWAR alone accounted for a third of the Yankees total team fWAR in 2025.
But the same is true of Cal Raleigh for the Mariners; his 9.1 fWAR accounts for almost 35% of the Mariners team mark of 26.5. But beyond the numbers, Raleighs impact on the 2025 Mariners touches every aspect of the team. Yes, his bat anchored the lineup, a looming threat and an obstacle that every opposing pitcher had to plan around. But while commentators and talking heads attempt to pay service to Raleighs role as a catcher, its difficult to really capture his daily impact, especially if youre not in the clubhouse every day to see it.
Raleigh simply never stops working. He shows up early and stays late; his days are fuller than anyone elses, crammed with meetings hitters meetings, pitching meetings, catcher-only meetings as well as less formal one-on-ones with various staff members. Theres batting practice, and maybe extra cage work if theres something specific hes working on with his swing. Then theres the time he puts in building rapport with his pitching staff, starters and relievers, learning who they are and what they like, on and off the field. Around all these meetings is time in the training room, doing preventative maintenance pregame in preparation for the beating his body is about to undergo, and postgame care to recover from the daily slings and arrows.
He doesnt stop working during the game, either; not only is he calling (or negotiating) every pitch a Mariners pitcher throws, hes also working with his pitchers during the offensive innings to look at hitter tendencies or talk about the game planwhen he doesnt have to get up and hit, which requires study and preparation of its own in order to adjust to how starters are attacking him. Or maybe an opposing manager opts to bring in a reliever, flipping around the switch-hitter, triggering a last-minute change of tactics.
How can anyone quantify what all this work is worth to a team? What formula can capture the physical, mental, and spiritual toll this takes on a player, and the heights they have to achieve to overcome it? Only Cal Raleigh could tell us, and hes too busy doing other things to calculate it.
The Yankees without Aaron Judge are still a good, although significantly diminished, baseball team. The Mariners without Cal Raleigh are a boat adrift at sea.
He might not be the league-wide MVP, but hes certainly ours.