By Matt Calkins Seattle Times
Caitlin Clark, the most popular women’s basketball player in history, came to town on Tuesday to face the Seattle Storm. She’s not the story right now, though. The Oklahoma City Thunder — the most loathed team among Seattleites — just won their first NBA championship. They aren’t the story, either.
Paris Saint-Germain vs. the Sounders at Lumen Field on Monday? Still not the story.
No, the top Emerald City sports headline belongs to one Cal Raleigh: the Mariners catcher chasing history … and just maybe an MVP.
A month ago, I wrote that Raleigh’s on-field excellence should be grabbing the attention of the entire country. He wasn’t just playing well for a Mariner — he’d emerged as the best catcher in baseball.
Well, consider that attention officially grabbed. Raleigh’s play through the first 77 games of the season isn’t evoking images of Johnny Bench, Yogi Berra or Mike Piazza — it’s more like Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa … minus any performance-enhancing-drug scandals, of course.
On Monday Raleigh hit his MLB-best 32nd home run in an 11-2 win over the Twins. It was his fifth home run in the past four games and sixth in the past six. Entering Tuesday’s game against the Twins, he was on pace to hit 67 homers, which would best Sosa’s 66 in 1998, when McGwire hit 70. Making that comparison would be ridiculous if this were April or May. But three weeks into June? It’s at least worth discussing.
So is this other topic. If the season were to end today, Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge would win the American League MVP unanimously. And if Judge, who is hitting an MLB-high .367 with 27 home runs and a league-best 1.195 OPS, keeps this pace — it would go down as one of the greatest seasons of all time.
But what we have in MLB is akin to a Tiger Woods/Phil Mickelson situation back in the mid 2000s, when there was a clear No. 1 and a clear No. 2. FanGraphs.com’s Wins Above Replacement chart before Monday’s game suggested as much, as it gave Judge a 6.0 WAR, Raleigh a 5.1, and the next five players (including Shohei Ohtani) a 3.9. If you have faith in FanGraphs, that means Raleigh has been nearly 25 percent better than anybody in baseball sans Judge.
Most of the time, if you finish with a WAR of 10 or above, you run away with the MVP. Sometimes, you don’t even have to break eight to win it. And though there is no way of knowing if Cal can keep this pace up — he doesn’t have the track record of a Judge or Ohtani — he has been closing in on Aaron. This is no longer Secretariat at the Belmont.
Plus, you have to wonder what criteria voters would use if the race between Judge and Raleigh got even closer by season’s end. I generally think MVP should go to whoever had the best season — and this is especially true if both teams make the playoffs. But there are some who might look at the Yankees and think that “they have the fourth-highest active payroll in baseball — they’d be OK with or without Judge.” The Mariners, meanwhile, have the 13th-highest active payroll and have been burdened by injuries all season. Raleigh might single-handedly be the difference between them reaching the postseason or not. That could influence what box some people check.
And, of course, there is the matter of the “clean” season home run record. Bonds hit 73 dingers in 2001, yes, but like McGwire and Sosa — who together occupy the next five spots on the season record — it was clear he was on PEDs. When Judge blasted 62 homers in 2022, though? That felt legit … and is the real record in my opinion. Raleigh has a real shot at that.
Right now, though, he and the Mariners (40-37 entering Tuesday) are just focused on gaining ground in the division and wild-card races. Historic individual seasons mean a whole lot less to players and fans if their season ends after 162 games. And honestly, you’re not going to get much from Cal regarding his place in history right now. There is no subject he likes talking about less than himself. His autobiography — at this time, at least — would be a pamphlet. But his work this year is on pace to put him in a pantheon.
Lots of stories to tell in the Seattle sports scene right now. But the man behind the plate is the one that sits front and center.