Mariners fans will get to see Cal Raleigh catching Tarik Skubal in 2026 after all

Since pretty much the beginning of the offseason, Seattle Mariners fans have been teased with the possibility of seeing baseball's best pitcher throwing to baseball's best catcher. Tarik Skubal to Cal Raleigh. Catch the fever…even if it's only in daydreams.

Yet as of Thursday, that team-up is actually set to happen in the 2026 World Baseball Classic. Raleigh signed on months ago, and now Skubal is aboard after committing to Team USA on Thursday.

Logan Webb, Mason Miller and David Bednar also committed to Team USA on Thursday, joining a pitching staff that already had Paul Skenes and Joe Ryan. The Dream Team vibes are real, and suddenly Mariners fans have more than just the Cal Raleigh-Aaron Judge gruesome twosome to look forward to.

Mariners fans will get to see Cal Raleigh catching Tarik Skubal in 2026 after all

Fan-player relationships don't get more complicated than the one that Mariners fans have had with Skubal in 2025.

On the one hand, he's the guy the Mariners beat four times throughout the year, including in ALDS Game 5. On another hand, he still looked like the best pitcher in baseball even as he and the Detroit Tigers took those Ls. On yet another hand, the Mariners have been an on again, off again trade landing spot for the two-time Cy Young Award winner this winter. On still another hand, whether the Mariners should be trying for Skubal depends on who you ask.

It's a breath of fresh air that the World Baseball Classic promises to simplify things. Skubal will be pitching and Raleigh will be catching him, which makes for a much more preferable viewing experience for Seattle fans than something like this:

The World Baseball Classic will not be Skubal's and Raleigh's first rodeo working together. They were the starting battery for the American League at this year's All-Star Game in Atlanta, resulting in one of the more remarkable mic'd up videos any baseball fan will ever see.

Because a repeat of their All-Star partnership may well be on tap for next summer, the WBC might not be the last time Skubal and Raleigh work together. Yet the odds of them having an ongoing working relationship in Seattle next year have always felt slim. The Mariners do have the prospect depth to trade for the ace lefty, but Detroit's asking price and Skubal's looming free agency after 2026 look like insurmountable obstacles.

So for Mariners fans, the World Baseball Classic probably won't be anything more than a brief glimpse at a daydream version of 2026. That's not a bad thing, and it will feel even better if Raleigh and Skubal do their part to get Team USA just its second ever WBC title.

If that happens, Raleigh will have had one of the more incredible 365-day runs that any baseball player has ever had. Already since March of this year, he's signed a nine-figure contract, make his first All-Star team, win the Home Run Derby, hit 60 home runs, and take the Mariners deeper into the playoffs than they've ever been.

To put a World Baseball Classic title at the end of all that would be one heck of an exclamation point.