Cal Raleigh Slump Reset: Second Half Mindset
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When an oblique injury breaks your timing, mechanical fixes and mental honesty go hand in hand — here’s what Raleigh’s 2026 slump teaches every young catcher.
Cal Raleigh hit 60 home runs in 2025. Sixty! That is the most ever by a primary catcher in a single season.
Then 2026 started — and he couldn’t buy a hit.
When Seattle paused for the All-Star break, Raleigh — the 2025 Silver Slugger, AL Outstanding Player, and Sporting News MLB Player of the Year — was batting .169. We covered his return from the injured list on July 4, when he hit his first home run back from a right oblique strain. The injury kept him out a full month. He came back June 16. But returning and resetting turned out to be two different things.
Here is how sharply the numbers split between the two seasons at the break:
| Stat | 2025 First Half | 2026 First Half |
|---|---|---|
| AVG | .259 | .169 |
| OBP | .376 | .271 |
| SLG | .634 | .310 |
| HR | 38 | 9 |
| RBI | 82 | 29 |
Driveline Baseball’s analysis pinned down where the swing broke. Before the oblique, Raleigh was making contact with fastballs about 5.2 inches in front of the plate — the sweet spot for a pull-side power hitter. After the injury scrambled his timing, that number fell to 1.9 inches. His sequencing — the chain from load to stride to contact — was firing early and late instead of clustering at the right moment.
The rest of the numbers told the same story. He was chasing balls outside the zone 37 percent of the time, his worst rate since rookie year. Against fastballs 95 mph and above, he was hitting .170 with a .218 wOBA — career worsts at both marks. Mariners GM Jerry Dipoto had pointed at the oblique as the root cause all along.
What did not change: Raleigh’s bat speed sat in the 77th percentile the whole time. The talent never left. The sequencing did.
On July 18, the eve of the second half opener in St. Petersburg, Florida, Raleigh stood up and told the truth. “We have not played good baseball,” he said. “That is just the straight fact.” He credited a mindset shift — born from some hard conversations — as the thing that finally cleared his head going into August.
He was not waiting for someone else to fix it.
What a catcher can learn from this
Slumps lie. They tell you the talent is gone, that something broke for good. Raleigh’s bat speed never left the 77th percentile. What shifted was timing — and timing is a mechanical problem with a mechanical fix.
The Driveline data gives young catchers something specific to borrow: contact point matters. When you start making contact too deep — on your hands, late to the pull side — the answer is not swinging harder. It is meeting the pitch at the right spot. A tee drill at the front of your hitting zone can reset the feel. You do not need a lab. You need a tee and twenty focused swings.
The mental side runs just as deep. Raleigh’s reset started with something hard: saying the problem out loud instead of burying it. A catcher who masks a slump stays in it longer. When your mechanics drift, the fastest way back is honesty with yourself — the same honesty Raleigh showed standing at a microphone in St. Petersburg.
He goes into the second half with a clear head. You can walk into your next practice the same way.
Try this at your next practice
- Front-tee contact-point drill. Set a tee 4–6 inches in front of your normal hitting position, right at the front hip. Take 20 swings focusing on driving through that spot. The goal is to feel what “in front” actually means so your body can find it again in a game.
- Pitch-zone check swings. Have a partner call “swing” or “take” on every pitch during soft toss. After any pitch you chase outside the zone, pause and reset your setup before the next one. Builds awareness of when you’re expanding the zone under pressure.
- Video your load. Record your swing from the side during a tee or soft-toss session. Look at the moment your front foot plants. If your hands are already firing before your stride finishes, your sequencing is early — exactly what happened to Raleigh. Identification is step one.
Sources: MLB.com — Searching for answers to Raleigh’s mysterious struggles · Yardbarker — Big Dumper to Big Slumper · FOX Sports Cal Raleigh player page
