PostScript Sports

Best First Half Catcher Season Ever?

Coming off a season where Cal Raleigh won the Gold Glove and Platinum Glove at the catcher position while also tallying 34 homers and 100 RBI’s and a 4.7 WAR. There were hopes and talks about: Is Cal Raleigh the best catcher in baseball? Would 2025 be the year could be considered the best or amongst the best by with William Contreras and Will Smith? 

As we approach the All-Star break the question seems to have gone from is Cal Raleigh the best catcher in baseball or is he the AL MVP? As of the morning of July 3rd, Raleigh just captured a starting spot on the AL All-Star team, has 33 homers to lead baseball and essentially has the same WAR already that he did all of last year in an already successful campaign. 

The question of course is: can he or anyone for that matter sustain that power (from both sides of the plate) while being an almost everyday catcher? He’s well on pace to break Salvador Perez’s record of 48 home runs, but what if a catcher hits 60? Injuries, slumps and bad luck all apart of the game but sometimes it’s okay to just enjoy an impressive run, especially from a somewhat unexpected source. 

Cal and The M’s

All while Cal Raleigh mashes the ball, game after game, while being one of the best game callers behind the plate. The Mariners feel record wise right where they were to be expected to be. But are getting there in maybe a less expected way. Without Raleigh’s bat this team most likely is amongst the many in the AL slightly below .500. Instead they sit at 45-40 and currently hold the final Wild Card spot in the AL.

After two straight ultra stellar seasons from the M’s starting pitchers the questions many had are: Can the pitching stay that good and healthy and can the bats just be average? The answer to the first question has been no. Though Bryan Woo has been stellar, Luis Castillo has been consistently good the rest of the rotation has been hurt, under performed or both. The Mariners have stayed alive from really only 3 or 4 consistent bats from Raleigh, JP Crawford + steady but slightly disappointing contributions from Julio Rodriguez and Randy Arozarena. A hot start from Jorge Polanco has been extinguished from consistent battles with his surgically repaired knee. Young players have been called or recalled and have started to contribute but it feels like for the Mariners to be anything more than a middling team scratching at a wild card a move will have to be made.

In a world not too long ago, it seemed that Julio Rodriguez would be the clear face of the Mariners franchise. Cal Raleigh has taken over the city and become arguably the most liked Mariner since Felix Hernandez. The team wins and goes with Cal, he is their floor and the engine that keeps the ball club moving. Julio, still loved by the fans of Seattle, is the ceiling. He is not solely responsible and the team needs to add to make a real run but a hot Julio turns this team into a real threat in the AL.

They are Inevitable, They are the Dodgers.

The Dodgers will Dodger even when they aren’t fully clicking. In another season where their starting pitching has been consistently on the IL the team sits a top the NL West by already a sizable margin. With Ohtani ramping up into throwing more innings and they get some of their starters back this team looks poised to make a World Series run. 

Many fans seem disgruntled or upset that the Dodgers consistently spend large amounts, defer contracts and make ambitious trades. I personally have always just been envious. Envious of an ownership group, that yes has a ton of money, but is willing to spend the money and invest in the team and winning. The Dodgers have spent the money and targeted Japanese stars and you can tell it’s paid dividends. Not only was the World Series worth the contracts given to Ohtani and Yamamoto but the revenue these guys bring in might be a lucrative investment.

This Dodger teams looks poised to peak at the right time. One thing to note though is the play and more so the bat of Mookie Betts. Mookie, one of the best players of the last decade and a future Hall of Famer, has pedestrian numbers at the plate. Is this a bad start, is it too much for him to play somewhat out of position in the infield and produce at the plate? Even with a league average-ish bat from Betts this team is winning games. If he can turn it around, Ohtani can start getting deep into games in his starts and the rotation gets healthy towards the end of the year this team will be an extremely tough out and a very heavy favorite to go back-to-back.

Would the Pirates Really Trade Skenes?

As the trade deadline approaches constant chatter of the Pirates and their future with Paul Skenes has already begun. Skenes through essentially a full season of work now between this and his call up mid-last season has been, if not the best pitcher in baseball one of the three best pitchers in baseball. The obvious problem is: being on a Pirates team that is still needing many pieces to compete plus the value of being under club control for essentially 4.5 more years.

The trade would be unprecedented. Trading a controllable arm that good that early. But what could the treasure chest back be? There is many times a bad team holds onto a single player asset for too long and doesn’t get fair value back. But trading that asset this early I can’t really recall seeing. 

The Pirates are years and pieces away from making any real run. With ownership the far opposite of the Dodgers ownership they aren’t going to bring in the pieces necessary to compete with an ace like Skenes. 

American League Lefty Mania

Are the 3 best pitchers in the AL all lefty? At least 3 of the best 4 pitchers are and it just seems like one of those weird quirks baseball provides us every now and then. Tarik Skubal, Max Fried and Garret Crochet have all been lights out for their respected teams this season and if the award was today would likely finish as 3 of the top 4 candidates in the Cy Young right now.

The only wrinkle to this hefty lefty award room would be the welcome back party of Jacon deGrom has put on for a middling Rangers team. Though pitching with a little less velocity deGrom has been masterful on the mound and has reminded us of how talented he can be after posting three of the most dominant pitching we’ve seen in past seasons.

NL East Minus the Marlins

Every team in the NL East right now besides the Marlins interests me at the moment.

You have a Mets team that seems to love getting hot and then going cold and repeating that over and over again. The addition of Juan Soto has been an interesting first 3 months or so. We will see if the $50,000,000 a year man can at least partially live up to a contract that no one besides Ohtani is probably worth in today’s dollars.

The Phillies, are who we thought they were! They are solid, a line up and pitching staff full of vets that’s going to win more games than they’ll lose and in reality only care about what they do in October. Does this aging team have another run in them, are they the only team outside of California that could care less about the Dodgers and thinks they’re every bit as good?

What do you do if you’re the Braves? A team that at the beginning of the last two seasons had tons of hope. But that hope is dwindling down. Harris, Albies, Riley, Murphy and more are just not producing the way they did a few seasons ago. Your division and frankly league are spending and getting better. 3 seasons ago I think that their roster configuration was the most desirable in the league. Now I’m sitting here wondering, are they trade reigning Cy Young winner Chris Sale or Ronald Acina at the deadline?

I think it’s safe to say the Nationals not only won the Juan Soto trade but obliterated the Juan Soto trade. It’s rare all the prospects in a trade like that pan out but the Nationals seem to have struck gold on their trio of CJ Abrams, MacKenzie Gore and James Wood. Wood in his first full season might already be a top-10 outfielder in baseball. Abrams looks like a cornerstone shortstop to come for the next decade and Gore is a strikeout machine on the mound. After quickly trading a 2019 World Series team away, hope felt loss in the nation’s capital, but these 3 really seem to be getting this ship turned in the right direction.