Mariners pitchers blatantly (and smartly) make more work for Cal Raleigh

The last thing Cal Raleigh needs is more responsibilities. He's already the Seattle Mariners' everyday catcher and their top power threat, and everyone in the organization looks to him for leadership.

Yet because he is indeed the everyday catcher, Raleigh has another responsibility on his plate whether he likes it or not: to challenge or not to challenge close pitches.

Per his past comments, Raleigh is not a fan of the Automated Ball-Strike System that is coming to MLB this year. But if there was any doubt that the ABS system would force him to be hyper-vigilant about being his own judge of balls and strikes, Mariners pitchers hade made it clear they're going to put that all on him.

When asked by Chris Rose, Logan Gilbert, Andrés Muñoz and Bryan Woo all basically said the same thing: challenging is for Cal, and for only Cal.

This is a lot of pressure to put on Raleigh. He caught 17,328 pitches throughout the 2025 season, and roughly half of those were subject to ball-strike calls by the home-plate umpire. While he no doubt had his own thoughts as to whether each was correctly called, it's only now that he has to form a solid opinion in a matter of seconds before tapping his head for a challenge.

Even so, his pitchers don't necessarily have the wrong idea.

Mariners pitchers are doing the right thing by trusting Cal Raleigh with ABS challenges

The ABS got its big break when it was in use during spring training last year. And by the end, the success rates on challenges for catchers, hitters and pitchers painted a clear picture of who has the best vantage point:

1. Catchers: 56 percent
2. Hitters: 50 percent
3. Pitchers: 41 percent

Because they have a clear view from the mound, you'd think that pitchers' success rate would at least be higher than that of hitters. But that clearly isn't the case.

This could be because their brains get short-circuited by the catcher's receiving work, or perhaps by thoughts of where the ball should have crossed the plate. As Chris Sale alluded to, it could also be that their brains get corrupted by greed.

For his part, Raleigh had more success than anyone challenging calls from behind the plate last spring. It was a small sample size, but it still hinted at both keen eyesight and a good sense of the given hitter's strike zone — the ABS zone is different for every hitter, after all.

The 29-year-old also has some thoughts on how to make the most of the Mariners' ABS challenges, of which they'll get at least two per game. Here are some key takeaways from a piece by Daniel Kramer of MLB.com:

• Be smart about when to challenge
• The best opportunities will be at the bottom of the zone
• It's less about stealing strikes and more about keeping strikes

There's no arguing with any of these, and it's worth noting that the ABS makes it literally impossible to steal strikes from the receiving side. And by focusing on low strikes as an area of opportunity, Raleigh is also hinting at a way to shore up one of his own shortcomings as a receiver.

In all, everyone is pretty much on the same page. Raleigh has the right ideas for how to make the most of the ABS, and his pitchers are all too happy to let him cook.