MLB Network’s Harold Reynolds is spot-on about Cal Raleigh's Mariners struggles

After a month on the injured list with a strained right oblique, Cal Raleigh is set to return to the Seattle Mariners on Tuesday. This could mark the turning of the tide for both him and the Mariners, but only if the 2025 AL MVP runner-up has fixed his swing.

Raleigh was, after all, extremely cold at the plate even before he tried and failed to play through pain in April and May. It was clear that something was off with his swing, which basically made good on a tip from the World Baseball Classic that he wasn't feeling it at the outset of 2026.

It'll do for a sign of hope that Raleigh homered five times in four games while on rehab with Triple-A Tacoma. There was more going on than simply a decorated 60-homer slugger taking on minor league pitching, as former Mariner Harold Reynolds explained on MLB Network on Sunday:

For anyone who can't (or just doesn't want to) watch the whole thing, the gist is that Raleigh's timing was off earlier in the year. It was especially evident in his leg kick, which was playing out slower than it had been throughout 2025. As a result, he was late on pitches.

All this scans with what anyone could have looked up when Raleigh went on the injured list on May 14. He was especially getting overwhelmed by fastballs, and specifically four-seamers. He went from a .594 SLG and 26.3 Whiff% against them in 2025 to a .228 SLG and a 34.6 Whiff% in 2026.

New Statcast metrics prove that Cal Raleigh was off with his timing earlier in 2026

What we have now that we didn't on May 14, though, are new Statcast metrics that allow for deep dives on swing matters that were previously subject to conjecture. Above all, timing.

Since four-seamers were Raleigh's biggest nemesis before he went on the IL, here's a selection of stats that effectively prove Reynolds' point:

The big one here is Raleigh's "On-Time%." That tracks swings where the barrel is within eight milliseconds of perfect timing, so he wasn't on time against four-seamers as often as in 2025. That helps explain his elevated whiff rate against four-seamers, as well as the drop in his rate of "perfect" contact —that's where the batter makes contact on a swing that is on time, centered and lined up.

If you're still with us, that means you're either interested in all this baseball gearhead stuff, or that you're looking for some kind of bottom line on what to expect from Raleigh now that he's healthy.

Obviously, the ship has sailed on another 60-homer season. But we'll go out on a limb and say he can still get to 30 homers for a fourth straight year. He has enough time to get the 23 he needs on top of the seven he already has, and he seems to be coming back healthy both in body and mind.

As long as his swing is also fixed, he can't lose. Or at least, not any worse than he did before he got hurt, anyway.

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