GM details how M’s will split catching duties while Raleigh is out

There’s hope within the Seattle Mariners that Cal Raleigh’s right oblique strain won’t keep him out for an extended amount of time, but they will be navigating at least the near future without their star catcher.

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While Raleigh is on the injured list, Mitch Garver and Jhonny Pereda are set to handle the Mariners’ catching duties moving forward.

General manger Justin Hollander shed some of light on how the team will handle its catching situation while it waits for the 2025 American League MVP runner-up to return when he joined Seattle Sports’ Wyman and Bob on Friday.

“We’ll take it series by series,” Hollander said. “… I don’t think anybody’s going to be out there three days in a row. I think that Cal is such a unique entity in the sport for that position. We get spoiled by the idea of, oh, here goes Cal out there for the fourth or fifth day in a row. He’s a freak and there’s just nobody like that, and we got to be smart and I think all of us are on the same page with that – Dan (Wilson), myself, Jerry (Dipoto), the training staff. So I think you’ll see a true timeshare between Jhonny and Mitch.”

Having a true split in catching duties will be quite the change for the M’s. Raleigh started at least 114 games behind the plate the past three seasons, including a career-high 125 in 2024. He also led baseball in games played with an appearance at catcher with 128 in 2023 and 135 in 2024.

Raleigh’s injury has made the re-signing of the 35-year-old Garver a more significant move for the M’s. He returned to the team with two years of experience working with its pitching staff, giving Seattle a veteran backstop who had already developed relationships and understandings with each of the returning pitchers on the staff.

Hollander pointed to Thursday’s game in Houston, which was the first after Raleigh went on the 10-day IL, as the value Garver can bring to the team. He went 1 for 3 at the plate with a two-run homer and a walk, and he called a game in which the Mariners’ pitching staff allowed three runs.

“I thought that he did an unbelievable job calling a great game (Thursday) for (Luis Castillo) and the relievers. He was really prepared back there,” Hollander said. “He battled in the box, he took a walk, he hit a homer on a mistake pitch.”

Pereda, who was acquired from Minnesota in a January trade, had appeared in just 50 games over two MLB seasons entering this year, but the 30-year-old catcher has over 800 games of experience at the minor league level.

Hollander praised the work Pereda put in with the Mariners’ pitching staff during spring training.

“Really good defender, really throws well, did a great job at spring training running a game with the staff, which is a hard thing to do when you’re coming into Mariners spring training. You’ve got a bunch of established pitchers and you have sort of an established pitching process that everybody’s used to throwing to one or two guys that have caught them for a long time,” Hollander said. “He did a great job acclimating very quickly, establishing trust.”

“Offensively, he will swing at the right pitches, he makes a lot of contact. That’s his game offensively, is he’ll make the pitcher work, he’ll put the ball in play.”

Ultimately, the Mariners aren’t expecting either to replicate what Raleigh is capable of.

“There’s just nobody on earth that’s going to go from that position and hit 60 homers in a season and sort of be the middle-of-the-lineup force that he is,” Hollander said. “But what we do need is guys who will guide a pitching staff through games, that can hit a mistake, that can make the other pitchers work, and we feel like we have two of them with Garv and Jhonny Pereda joining the club… (We) really (have) a great deal of trust in both of those guys.”

Hear the full conversation at this link or watch the video at the top of this post. Listen to Wyman and Bob weekdays from 2-7 p.m. or find the podcast on the Seattle Sports app. 

More Seattle Mariners coverage

• Seattle Mariners Injury Update: Latest on Cal Raleigh and more
• Salk: How Seattle Mariners can replace Cal Raleigh’s production
• Seattle Mariners trade DFA’d reliever to AL West rival

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