Why Seattle Mariners' Raleigh is 'ballpark-proof'

Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh is on top of the baseball world right now.

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The switch-hitting slugger has emerged as baseball’s best catcher this season while putting up his historic numbers for his position. He’s currently on pace for 60 home runs, which would break the MLB record for catchers and switch-hitters, and the Mariners’ franchise record.

Mike Petriello recently dug into the season Raleigh is having in an article on MLB.com. Petriello joined Seattle Sports’ Wyman and Bob on Monday to discuss what’s leading to Raleigh’s success.

Negating the T-Mobile Park effect

Petriello pointed to what Raleigh has done at home this season as something that stood out to him. Raleigh has been almost as productive at T-Mobile Park – by far the toughest place to hit in the league – as he has been on the road.

Raleigh has a .962 OPS with six doubles and 13 home runs in 150 plate appearances at his home park. He has a 1.108 OPS with six doubles and 13 home runs in 152 plate appearances on the road.

That’s a big change from past years. Raleigh had a .668 OPS with 34 home runs in 860 plate appearances at home entering the year, and a .809 OPS with 59 home runs in 900 plate appearances on the road.

“I think what’s happening here is he’s tried to optimize what he does with his swing,” Petriello said. “He has basically the highest or second-highest rate of pulled balls in the air that we’ve seen in the pitch tracking era, going back to 2008, and that to some extent is ballpark-proof because that’s going to work no matter where you are.”

Petriello said the risk about this type of approach is that it can cause a player’s strikeout rate to inflate.

“I think the most interesting thing is he’s got a lower strikeout rate at home,” Petriello said. “That’s weird because that’s what we talked about last year, T-Mobile inflates strikeouts, and that’s not happening for him this year. And to be honest, I don’t have a good answer as to why. But the fact that he’s doing that, I would love to know why, because I bet all the other Mariners hitters would also love to know why.”

The reasoning behind pulling flyballs

Petriello said selling out on pulling flyballs isn’t an approach for everybody, but Raleigh’s power and swing give him a good profile to do so. Petriello explained that there are two major factors behind the reasoning to the approach.

“Anybody who’s watched baseball knows the obvious reason, which is that shorter down the lines than it is to the power alleys. That’s clear,” he said. “But with a lot of this new data we have, we’ve been able to show that the speed of your bat is higher when you’re pulling the ball, which I think makes sense.

“(There’s) more time for the bat to move if it gets out ahead, as opposed to if you’re trying to get (the ball) deep in the zone. And that could add four miles an hour to your swing if you’re pulling the ball.”

Hear the full conversation at this link or in the audio player near the top of this story. Tune in to Wyman and Bob weekdays from 2-7 p.m. or find the podcast on the Seattle Sports app.

Why Seattle Mariners’ Raleigh is ‘ballpark-proof’

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