Cal Raleigh smacks 16th homer of the season as Mariners tie game vs. White Sox…
Cal Raleigh went yard to help the Seattle Mariners tie game vs. the White Sox.
Commentary: Mariners’ Cal Raleigh Bryan Woo entering All-Star awards conversations..
SEATTLE – You know who Cal Raleigh and Bryan Woo are, but do they? Does the random fan in Florida, or the die-hard in Detroit know their names, too?
A month ago the answer was likely no. Hell, the answer may still very well be no. But what this Seattle Mariners pair has been doing over the past month and a half is getting close to warranting a level of national recognition resembling the local one.
Raleigh, a catcher, was the most productive player for the M’s last year and has been their most consistent over the past three. Woo, a right-handed pitcher, may have been the Mariners’ most dominant hurler when healthy last season – as his 2.89 ERA was the lowest among the team’s starters.
But in 2025, as Seattle (27-19) is in first place in the American League West by 2½ games, this duo has been as dynamic as they’ve ever been in their relatively short careers. All-Star bids coming? If they keep this up, yeah. End-of-season award chatter, too. As much as anything, though, they’re on their way to making sure the rest of the country knows who they are – not just those in the Emerald City.
We’ll start with Raleigh. Last year, the 28-year-old won the Platinum Glove for the best defensive player in the American League while posting a WAR of 4.6. That WAR was the best on the Mariners, but 34th in MLB. His numbers weren’t pronounced enough to earn him an All-Star bid – though he did finish 12th in the AL MVP voting. Basically, he had a very good season for a pretty good team that missed the playoffs by a game.
That isn’t going to earn you much national fanfare when you’re in a midmarket town playing for an organization that has never reached a World Series. But through 46 games this season his WAR was 2.4 – tied for seventh in the major leagues. His 15 home runs were tied with Aaron Judge for the most in the AL, just one behind Shohei Ohtani for the big-league lead. True, his caught-stealing percentage of .167 is well below his career mark from behind the plate, but you have to think that will tick upward. Still, if you’re looking for a portrait of the Mariners’ offensive renaissance, it would be Raleigh’s mug. He’s on pace to have one of the greatest Mariners seasons ever.
And then there’s Woo. I wrote a column about the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo product last year, in which I explained that – despite Woo’s 6.11 ERA in his final year in college – Mariners director of pitching staff Trent Blank still would have picked him No. 1 overall in the draft. M’s president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto didn’t select him in the first round, but Blank made enough of a case that Seattle took Woo in the sixth round … kind of like that old Patriots and Bucs quarterback.
No, Woo is not likely to go down as the greatest to play the game, as Tom Brady was in his sport. But his 2.65 ERA is 17th in baseball, and his 0.867 WHIP is fourth. This is not a fluke. The man with one of the most deceptive deliveries in the game has been stellar since he found his sea legs in the middle of his rookie year in 2023. On Sunday he allowed one run in seven innings in the Mariners’ 6-1, sweep-completing win over the Padres. Woo has gone at least six innings in all nine of his outings this season, with seven resulting in quality starts. Injured Logan Gilbert was the Mariners’ opening-day starter. Woo, however, may be on his way to becoming the team’s ace.
Obviously, there have been other Mariners who have stood out this season.
It feels somewhat criminal to have not mentioned closer Andrés Muñoz, who had a 0.00 ERA this season through 202/3 innings. And center fielder Julio Rodriguez, always a late starter, is starting to find his All-Star form again.
But with Seattle fresh off a sweep against one of the best teams in baseball, all while playing like one of the top teams in the league over the past 40 days, it’s hard not to shine a light on Raleigh and Woo. Their names have rung out in Seattle for a while.
At this pace, their reach will soon stretch a whole lot farther.