Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh put together an incredible season in 2025, finishing second in the American League MVP voting after hitting 60 home runs and driving in 125 runs.

Raleigh's 60 homers are the most ever by a catcher, a switch-hitter or a Mariners player. He's become one of the most recognizable players in the sport and has become a national icon because of his "Big Dumper" nickname. 

Raleigh's season was the stuff of legends, both from a statistical and a workload standpoint. The backstop played in 159 games, catching 121 of them, shunning the kind of rest days that catchers are often forced to take.

However, most catchers don't hit like Raleigh does. He's essential to the M's lineup and they can't really afford to keep him out. But still, the question deserves to be asked: Can Raleigh undertake the kind of workload he had in 2025 again?

Again, most catchers don't have the importance to their teams that Raleigh does, but some over the last 15 years have. Salvador Perez of the Kansas City Royals has played in at least 138 games in eight of his 14 years. One of those years was the COVID-shortened 2020 season and two of them were before he was an established player, so he's really taken that workload in eight of 11 full seasons. Yadier Molina played at least 135 games or more in eight of his 19 seasons for the St. Louis Cardinals, but he did it each year from 2009-13. JT Realmuto has played in 134 or more in seven of nine seasons, excluding his first big league season and the COVID season. 

None of those are as many as 159, but as long as Raleigh is taking his allotment of designated hitter days, it seems fair to assume he can keep playing at at least a high rate.

Buster Olney of ESPN was on the most recent episode of the 'Refuse to Lose' podcast and spoke about his recent catcher rankings and what he's heard from the Mariners front office on this topic:

"Yeah, we did have rankings of the top 10 catchers in baseball, and of course Cal is number one. And, you know, one of my questions is, after he played 159 games in the regular season, what sort of plans that the Mariners have for that this year? Do they think it's going to be more? Do they think it's going to be less? Are they going to pull it back?

And just in talking with Jerry Dipoto, and I spoke with Justin Hollander as well, it was pretty clear they were comfortable with the mix they had last year. Jerry said to me, 'Cal wants to play.' And they felt that he handled last year really well. There was never really a time where they thought he was just worn down...So they're just going to follow his lead.

I think that, you know, last year was what? 121 games behind the plate in the regular season, 38 games at DH. I think Cal is going to continue to aim for that. And what became clear at my conversations is, man, they have such faith in his ability to structure his own schedule. And they talked about how precise he is. He knows exactly how much time to give himself to get his right-handed swing ready, his left-handed swing ready, to prepare for the pitcher that night and his job behind the plate, or if he's serving as a DH, talking with the backup catcher to help him prepare, the media stuff..."

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