SEATTLE — Cal Raleigh says he’s trying not to think much about the increased likelihood of him becoming a first-time All-Star this season, in light of Phase 1 of the official ballot for the fan vote launching on Wednesday.
But pressed about competing in the T-Mobile Home Run Derby, the Mariners’ catcher was far more blunt.
“Yeah, I would do that in a heartbeat,” Raleigh said this week.
There are just under six weeks to go before baseball’s premier power-hitting event, but barring an injury or massive dropoff in production, Raleigh is putting together arguably the strongest candidacy in the sport to be among the eight-man field for the Derby, which will take place at Truist Park in Atlanta on July 14.
“Who wouldn’t want to do that, right?” Raleigh said.
Raleigh entered Thursday tied with Shohei Ohtani for the MLB lead with 23 homers, would be a first-time Derby participant, plays a unique position for a Derby contestant and would be taking part in a homecoming of sorts, having grown up just 150 miles away in North Carolina.
The potentially best part, though, would be the chance that the switch-hitting Raleigh could bat from both sides.
“We’ve got to get there first, and from there, we’d decide,” Raleigh said with a wry grin.
Since the Derby’s inception in 1985, only Adley Rutschman in 2023 has hit both righty and lefty in the event, according to Baseball-Reference. Baltimore’s backstop did so on Raleigh’s home turf at T-Mobile Park, when he crushed 20 homers from the left side in the three-minute first round before switching to hit from the right side during a 30-second bonus round after a break.
Overall, only 10 switch-hitters have taken part in the Derby — José Ramírez (2022, 2024), Rutschman (2023), Josh Bell (2019), Carlos Santana (2019), Nick Swisher (2010), Mark Teixeira (2005), Lance Berkman (2002, ’04, ’06, ’08), Chipper Jones (1997, 2000), Ruben Sierra (1989) and Eddie Murray (1985).
None have won; no catcher has, either.
All of these factors will certainly be on Raleigh’s mind if and when an invite comes from MLB, which probably won’t be for at least a few weeks.
The first participant announced last year was Gunnar Henderson on June 30, who revealed during a midgame interview on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball that he was doing it. The year prior, it was Julio Rodríguez on June 23, as part of a home-field reveal given that year’s All-Star Week was in Seattle.
“That’s out of my control,” Raleigh said. “I’m not worrying about that, just worrying about the team. And any of that stuff that comes along — if it comes, it comes; if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. I still have a job to do.”
As for the All-Star Game, Raleigh — who is pushing into the AL MVP conversation — is the runaway favorite to not only make the team but start for the American League at catcher, which would come via the fan vote.
“That’s kind of like the peak of individual, what you want to accomplish,” Raleigh said, “something that you look back one day, that’d be a pretty cool thing and to be honored with. And it being in Georgia, very close to home and somewhere I’ve been a lot, spent a lot of time there, that’d be kind of neat.”
If he wins the fan vote, Raleigh would also end a franchise-long drought, becoming Seattle’s first catcher to start the All-Star Game. To date, Dan Wilson — his manager and longtime mentor — is the only Mariners backstop to be an All-Star, in 1996.
The Mariners haven’t had an All-Star in the starting lineup of the Midsummer Classic since Nelson Cruz at designated hitter in 2015. And they haven’t had a non-DH in the starting lineup since Robinson Cano in 2014.
Raleigh has become one of the faces of sports in the Pacific Northwest, but the stars are aligning for those outside this region to get to know him much more.
