4 Takeaways: Mariners’ Raleigh on Edgar, Gilbert, 2025 and more

As the Seattle Mariners were gearing up for the start of spring training last week, the Hot Stove on Seattle Sports scored a big guest: the Platinum Glove-winning Cal Raleigh.

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The 28-year-old switch-hitting catcher is coming off what was in many ways his best season in the big leagues. He won his first Gold Glove only to be recognized soon after as the best defender in the American League regardless of position with the aforementioned Platinum version, and on the offensive end of things he set multiple career highs including home runs (34), RBIs (100) and – ever the speedster – stolen bases (six).

The last of those 34 home runs was especially memorable as it gave Raleigh 93 for his career, breaking Mike Piazza’s record for the most homers by a catcher over their first four seasons – and that’s even with Raleigh’s first season providing only two of those longballs.

After such a big 2024 season, what’s in store for Raleigh in 2025? He covered that during the 20-minute conversation with Mariners broadcasters Aaron Goldsmith and Gary Hill, as well as shared insight on All-Star pitcher Logan Gilbert and the impact that Hall of Famer Edgar Martinez joining Seattle’s coaching staff had on the team’s offense.

Here are a few takeaways.

Don’t lose your edge

Raleigh put a lot of work in ahead of 2024, particularly when it came to framing pitches, and it paid off with him earning the highest defensive honor MLB has. When you reach a peak like that, what do you focus on to improve a year later?

One word stood out from Raleigh’s response: edge.

“You still got things you want to improve on. You never want to be satisfied. You want to walk that line and make sure that you keep getting better, you keep that edge to you,” he said. “I think that’s the big thing is sometimes you look for new swings or things like that, but you also gotta keep that edge to how you approach your offseasons and how you approach the games.

“It’s a really big deal to be doing what we’re doing, and just trying to do as much as you can each day to try to better yourself and get yourself prepared for 162.”

The Big LG

Another player who put in their best season yet with the Mariners last year is starting pitcher Logan Gilbert, who was a first-time All-Star and finished sixth in the AL Cy Young Award race. Raleigh has played a big role in Gilbert’s career – he’s been his catcher pretty much since Day 1 as both were 2018 MLB Draft picks and came through the M’s system together.

Asked about Gilbert’s evolution, Raleigh gave his old friend props while throwing in some good-natured ribbing that tends to come with the territory.

“The guy is continuously finding ways to better himself, and it’s not all data-driven or not all certain pitches,” Raleigh said. “He’s doing his homework on hitters, he’s keeping notes, he’s becoming a pitcher in front of our eyes kind of in a way – I don’t want to give him all that credit yet. He’s finding ways to to mess with hitters’ timings or just finding little nuances here and there that he can find advantages to or get edges to, and learn just how to win ball games.”

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Starting strong?

In each of the last four seasons, the Mariners have won at least 85 games. They haven’t been known for coming out of the gates firing on all cylinders, though, and it’s an easy thing to point to when the team has missed the playoffs by a game or two in three of those seasons.

While a hot start would be nice, Raleigh emphasized the importance of consistency throughout the 162-game schedule.

“Instead of looking at the beginning of it, I think you look more (for) consistency throughout the season – so you’re not seeing the lows get too low, you’re not seeing the highs get too high. Obviously you want more highs than lows, but being consistent throughout the season, not having inconsistent months and stretches happening too often, things like that.

“Because things are going to go bad at some point – like, there’s lots of good, there’s lots of bad, every team goes through it no matter who you are. But just eliminating the bad, not making them as bad, finding a way to win that extra game where you just just claw back, and it’s that one game and then it’s another game and those add up to a handful of games. Just finding a way to turn those around, just a couple of those and winning the games that we need to win and should win. That’s kind of how I look at it more rather than (just) coming out from the start.”

Edgar’s impact on Seattle Mariners’ hitters

The Mariners’ offense didn’t have a great 2024 season as a whole, but it turned things around with a big September, which came after Dan Wilson took over as manager and made Edgar Martinez the team’s interim hitting coach.

Martinez is keeping a role on the staff in 2025 as the new senior director of hitting strategy, and Raleigh had a good explanation for how Martinez helped the M’s hitters with their approaches.

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“I just think how simple Edgar kept it. At the end of the day, just doing your job, staying to the big part of the field. Really just simple messaging,” he said. “As hitters, as all of us do, sometimes we get a little too analytical or thinking about the swing too much. It doesn’t come down to that.

“It’s about who can compete in the box and who can outlast the approach to the pitcher and staying stern to what you’re trying to do. That’s where good hitters are made and I think that was what helped us out (during) that stretch. Just looking forward to hopefully keeping that going and keeping that messaging strong.”

The Hot Stove airs from 7-9 p.m. Tuesday nights on Seattle Sports 710 AM, the Seattle Sports app and SeattleSports.com. Hear last week’s full conversation with Cal Raleigh at this link or in the player near the top of this post, and click here for full podcasts of every show.

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