Cal Raleigh's backup is showing him up in a surprising way during Mariners absence

The Seattle Mariners are 3-4 since Cal Raleigh went on the injured list last week. And yet, things would be worse without Jhonny Pereda's subtly well-rounded skillset and Mitch Garver's supreme ability to hack the Automated Ball-Strike System.

If anyone missed it, Garver had a dandy of an ABS challenge on Tuesday in support of Bryce Miller. It came on a fastball that barely clipped the edge of the zone, turning a 2-0 count into a 1-1 count against Mason Peters, who later made an out.

Far from a one-off, this was a case of Garver doing Garver things with the ABS. He's won 14 of his 17 challenges while catching, good for an 82 percent success rate that ranks ahead of all other American League catchers.

Not to pile on Raleigh anything, but his use of the ABS was sort of an adjacent disappointment next to the hideous .161 batting average he posted before going on the IL. Early signs from last year had us believing the ABS would be another way for him to excel. In actuality, he's won only 60 percent of his catching challenges and is nearly as bad at using the ABS as Garver is good at it.

Mitch Garver's ABS approach for Mariners is a lesson for other catchers, including Cal Raleigh

This is the opposite of what you'd expect, at least based on Raleigh's and Garver's framing numbers. Raleigh has been average with exactly zero Catcher Framing Runs in 2026. Garver, meanwhile, is at -2 Catcher Framing Runs despite having caught 116 fewer pitches.

As part of Tuesday's broadcast, though, Aaron Goldsmith noted that Garver's success with the ABS is separate from his ability to frame strikes. He noted that Garver is aware there are certain pitches that he "can't quite frame correctly as strikes, but that he knows are strikes."

It's a difference between trying to trick the home-plate umpire as to what the strike zone should be, and knowing what the strike zone actually is. Garver clearly has a good eye for the latter, even if his 35-year-old reflexes make it difficult to master the former.

Granted, we don't know if Raleigh doesn't have the same mindset when it comes to framing vs. using the ABS. But the proof that he needs to get better with challenges is right there in the pudding. And it isn't strictly a defensive thing, as he's also been weirdly hesitant about using the ABS when hitting this year.

The best version of the 2026 Mariners obviously has a version of Raleigh who's both a fearsome slugger and a defensive rock, and time might be the only thing they need for that to happen. At least in respect to the ABS, though, it wouldn't hurt if he took after his backup.

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