Cal Raleigh's greatest gift to 2026 Mariners was getting this player off the couch

By this time last year, Cal Raleigh was already 26 home runs into a 60-homer season that nearly won him the AL MVP. That ship has long since sailed, so it's a good thing that Raleigh is directly responsible for one of the pleasant surprises of the Seattle Mariners' 2026 season: Mitch Garver.

As in 2024 and 2025, his OPS is once again in the .600s. And while he does have his WAR above replacement level after falling short at -0.4 over the last two seasons, we're talking barely at 0.4. Even just among catchers, it's tied for the 24th-most valuable slot in MLB.

Yet with Raleigh at -0.2 and Jhonny Pereda at 0.2, that WAR unexpectedly makes Garver the most valuable catcher among Seattle's inventory.

Even if the 35-year-old's numbers are unimpressive, there are reasons why it feels like they are. He's provided a rock-solid .802 OPS against left-handers. Garver has also proven to be an ABS savant behind the plate, with an 82 percent success rate on challenges that leads AL catchers.

As Adam Jude of The Seattle Times told it in February, Garver was working out and just plain waiting at home in Colorado throughout the offseason, not getting "any good offers or formal offers" as a free agent. That's when Raleigh rang and suggested he call the Mariners, and the two sides hammered out a minor league deal less than 24 hours later.

Even if his $2.25 million salary is actually a $3.25 million cost, the return on investment so far sure beats what the Mariners got out of the $24 million investment they made in Garver in 2023.

There's still lots of time for Cal Raleigh to salvage his 2026 season for the Mariners

Given what happened in 2024 and 2025, asking for more from Garver might be asking too much. In turn, that means that being the guy who got Garver to come back simply can't be Raleigh's lasting contribution to the 2026 Mariners.

It's been a snakebit kind of year for the 29-year-old, so it was nice to see him swinging it like, well, Cal Raleigh on Tuesday. Two home runs in one game as part of a minor league rehab assignment don't redeem the .560 OPS he posted through his first 41 games with the big club. But if the takeaway is that he's at least recovered from his oblique injury, that alone has huge implications.

The question indeed writes itself: If the Mariners are a first-place team even without the Cal Raleigh they expected, how far can they go once that guy shows up?

The thinking now is that Raleigh could return at the beginning of the Mariners' next homestand on June 16. They'll still have 88 games remaining by then. In case you're wondering, the most home runs Raleigh has ever hit in an 88-game span was 38 between March 31 and July 11 last year.

It's a high bar to clear. But if he gets anywhere close to it, the feeling that the Mariners have underachieved in 2026 could go away in a hurry.

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