Cal Raleigh

All aboard the Big Dumper express! Raleigh earned the moniker from Jarred Kelenic with his breakout sophomore season hitting timely homers with stellar defense as Raleigh seemingly aimed to remind Seattle what they once had in Mike Zunino. Raleigh's batting average was nothing to write home about as it hovered there most of the season with some peaks (.254 in down the stretch) and valleys (.136 into June), but his 121 wRC+ was well above the 89 figure the catching position as a whole produced league-wide. Like Zunino, the story here is raw power and Raleigh has plenty of it with the ability to launch a baseball to all fields with a prevalance to crank and yank them down the right field line. His numbers against righties and lefties are nearly identical and the defense means he is the primary catcher as long as the recovery from offseason hand surgery goes well. He is one of the primary reasons the catching position is no longer considered a black hole as he went from undraftable in 15 team leagues last season to a likely top 8 catcher on draft boards this season.

Raleigh is a fairly interesting prospect but struggled to a .180/.223/.309 line in his 47-game MLB debut last year after posting a far superior .324/.377/.608 line in 44 games for Triple-A Tacoma. His underlying numbers in the majors suggest he deserved that poor performance, as he combined a 35.1 percent strikeout rate with a 4.7 percent walk rate, but the Mariners clearly believe he'll do better going forward. He'll compete for playing time at catcher this spring but could win the bulk of playing time.

Raleigh was a third-round draft pick by Seattle in the 2018 draft out of Florida State. He had a solid debut in the rookie leagues, hitting .288/.367/.534 for short-season Everett, but took off with power in 2019, combining for 29 homers while playing in the California and Texas leagues. The scouting reports always said he could hit for power from either side of the plate, and there is nothing long-term in the way preventing Raleigh from being a fantasy factor in Seattle as early as the 2022 season. In keeper leagues, you will want to get ahead of the curve for a catcher like this with above-average potential at a position where such players are tough to find most years. It would be a surprise to see Raleigh in the big leagues in 2021 for anything more than a cup of coffee.