Just last week, a major-league executive was talking about how seldom catchers become free agents. Teams generally are eager to lock up quality receivers, knowing how difficult they are to find. And catchers often are receptive to extensions, knowing the open market rarely is kind to players at their position.
Voila!
Within days, two more catchers came off the board.
The first was Alejandro Kirk, whose five-year, $58 million extension with the Toronto Blue Jays became official Tuesday. The second, and more notable, was Cal Raleigh, who agreed Tuesday to a six-year, $105 million deal with the Seattle Mariners, pending a physical, according to sources briefed on the terms.
The Raleigh contract is the rare extension that reflects fair market value and can even be considered somewhat above. Often players sacrifice dollars for long-term security, a tradeoff that, especially with hitters, frustrates some player representatives. Raleigh’s deal is perhaps a sign of how badly the Mariners needed a win after barely addressing their offense during the offseason. The Mariners, though, were willing to go to special lengths for a special player.
Raleigh, 28, was the 2024 American League Platinum Glove Award winner. Over the past three seasons, he leads all catchers in home runs and games played. He excels in all phases of catching, making him particularly valuable to a team built around starting pitching. And his request for a no-trade clause was testament to his desire to stay with the Mariners, a team hitters rarely consider their first choice. Over the past three seasons, T-Mobile Park was the worst run-scoring environment in the majors.
Raleigh on Jan. 9 agreed to a one-year, $5.6 million contract, avoiding a hearing in his first year of salary arbitration. If he continued producing big seasons, he perhaps could have approached $30 million over his three years in the arb process. His new contract, which supersedes his one-year deal, includes a $10 million signing bonus and guarantees him $34 million over those three years, without him playing a single pitch.
The extension also covers three free-agent years, each with salaries of $23 million. And it includes a $20 million vesting player option that Raleigh can exercise if he appears in 100 games as a catcher in four of the six seasons. He will receive a $2 million buyout if he fails to meet that threshold or if he meets it and declines the option.
The average annual value of Raleigh’s deal is $17.5 million. The AAV of his free-agent years, including the buyout, is $23.67 million. J.T. Realmuto’s $23.1 million AAV is the record for a catcher, surpassing Joe Mauer’s $23 million. Deferrals lowered the present value of Realmuto’s deal to just under $23 million.
Even if you exclude Raleigh’s buyout from the calculation, his salaries in his free-agent years are in line with the highest-paid catchers in the history of the sport. The outcome seemingly is the one he desired when he switched agencies in November, leaving the Scott Boras Corporation for Excel Sports Management. Boras generally prefers his clients to establish their values on the open market.
Without an extension, Raleigh would have been a free agent entering his age 31 season. Realmuto signed his five-year, $115.5 million free-agent contract with the Phillies when he was a year younger. Perhaps Raleigh, with continued success, could have commanded an even larger deal than Realmuto. Or perhaps teams would have freaked out over giving big money to a player his age, as they often do with players in their 30s.
Another factor: The value of a catcher might diminish slightly with the introduction of the Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) challenge system, which could happen as soon as next season. Raleigh ranked second in framing last season behind the San Francisco Giants’ Patrick Bailey. Framing will continue to matter unless the league decides to go full robo-ump, which seems unlikely. The skill just won’t be quite as important as before.
Raleigh does so many things well behind the plate, from preparation to game-calling, receiving to throwing to leading a staff, that any diminishment of framing will barely dent his overall impact. Heck, he even excelled with his challenges during the trial run of ABS in spring training, getting nine in a row correct before finally missing one.
The way the Mariners see it, Raleigh is everything a team could want, a third-round pick out of Florida State in 2018 who developed into a workhorse at the game’s most physically taxing position. He played a key role in the maturation of the Mariners’ homegrown starters, Logan Gilbert, George Kirby, Bryce Miller and Bryan Woo. And now he will remain part of a homegrown core that also includes star center fielder Julio Rodríguez, with several top hitting prospects getting closer to the majors. The Athletic’s Keith Law recently ranked the Mariners’ farm system the best in the sport.
Sure, the Mariners are paying Raleigh well. But for this team, he’s the right guy at the right time.
(Top photo: Brandon Sloter / Getty Images)
