Cal Raleigh has numerous energy. That’s all the time been his calling card, at the very least on offense. In every of his three full main league seasons, he’s posted a below-average OBP and an above-average offensive line. In cavernous T-Cellular Park, the toughest place to hit in baseball, his 34 dwelling runs and .436 slugging proportion in 2024 had been downright titanic. This 12 months, although, he’s tapped into one thing new.
Or, nicely, his outcomes are completely one thing new. One very attention-grabbing factor about Raleigh’s spectacular 2025: It hasn’t come from extra uncooked energy. Most exit velocity? Nothing new for Raleigh. Neither is his common exit velocity, nor his hard-hit price, each of that are broadly consistent with 2024. His bat pace is identical. When he’s making an attempt to hit a house run, he’s doing it the best way he all the time has.
However whereas his potential to hit baseballs exhausting is perhaps the identical because it’s all the time been, he’s demonstrating that potential extra usually than ever earlier than. He’s each placing the ball within the air and pulling his elevated contact extra ceaselessly, and extra of his batted balls are barrels, too. He’s putting out much less ceaselessly, with a career-high contact price and career-low swinging strike price.
Nothing is ever so easy that it’s pushed by one factor, however I feel there’s one necessary change driving Raleigh’s surge. It’s one thing he’s been working towards for a couple of years, in truth. When Raleigh is forward within the rely and pitchers throw him meatballs over the center of the plate, he’s swinging lower than ever earlier than:
Cal Raleigh’s Coronary heart Swing%, Forward In Depend
| 12 months | Swing% |
|---|---|
| 2021 | 83.7% |
| 2022 | 85.0% |
| 2023 | 76.1% |
| 2024 | 77.9% |
| 2025 | 73.4% |
Wait, that doesn’t sound like a superb factor. Raleigh used to feast when he obtained forward within the rely, unleashing his fearsome swing nearly at any time when he noticed a pitch to drive. Now he’s swinging at a league-average price. These are the most effective pitches within the sport to be hitting. If you wish to show extra energy with out getting stronger or swinging tougher, providing at extra of those is simply the ticket. However Raleigh is swinging at them much less whereas hitting for extra energy. What provides?
What provides is that the statistic I simply gave you is a bit deceptive with out extra context. Positive, Raleigh isn’t taking fairly as a lot benefit of the simple pitches he sees when he’s already forward within the rely. However he’s additionally swinging at unhealthy pitches in these conditions much less ceaselessly. Listed below are a couple of methods of measuring that: swings within the “shadow-out” zone, which is simply off the sides of the plate, swings within the “chase” zone simply previous that, and swings on all pitches which might be out of the zone:
Cal Raleigh’s Swing Charges by Location, Forward in Depend
| 12 months | Shadow-Out% | Chase% | Out of Zone% |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 52.2% | 47.1% | 42.6% |
| 2022 | 47.2% | 22.5% | 30.8% |
| 2023 | 52.3% | 14.1% | 30.6% |
| 2024 | 48.3% | 20.4% | 31.9% |
| 2025 | 45.5% | 17.9% | 25.8% |
Not all three are profession lows, however they’re all indicative of a unique strategy. Raleigh has all the time been a high-swing man. Even this 12 months, he’s chasing pitches exterior of the strike zone extra usually than the league common. However in 2025, he’s holding again like by no means earlier than.
One doable rationalization right here is that Raleigh is studying to command the strike zone. Perhaps he’s discovered plate self-discipline after years of struggling to tell apart balls from strikes. He’s strolling extra usually and putting out much less ceaselessly. However I don’t suppose that’s fairly proper as a result of, once more, his swing price on pitches over the center of the plate has declined. As a substitute, what we’re seeing from Raleigh just isn’t a lot an enchancment in ability however a change in strategy.
Think about two forms of swings, one good and one unhealthy. Swinging at a pitch over the center of the plate? That’s good. Swinging at a pitch that’s not even close to the border of the zone? That’s unhealthy. These are coronary heart swing price and chase/waste swing price, respectively. The upper the hole between these two, the higher a batter has executed on the core perform of pitch choice: Attacking the easy-to-hit ones and shedding those which might be clearly out of the zone. Raleigh isn’t bettering on this entrance. In truth, he’s at a profession low, at the very least in the event you exclude his abbreviated 2021 debut:
Good Swings vs. Dangerous Swings
| 12 months | Coronary heart% | Chase/Waste% | Hole |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 85.0% | 28.7% | 56.3% |
| 2022 | 82.2% | 19.8% | 62.4% |
| 2023 | 76.7% | 17.2% | 59.5% |
| 2024 | 78.9% | 19.4% | 59.5% |
| 2025 | 77.3% | 18.7% | 58.6% |
You possibly can consider plate self-discipline as the mix of two separate axes. First, there’s pitch recognition. The most effective guys at this – Kyle Tucker, Corey Seager, Aaron Decide, Juan Soto – are consultants at telling strikes from balls. That is the toughest a part of commanding the strike zone. When you have this ability, good for you! It seems to be very tough to be taught, with few hitters taking large leaps ahead from one 12 months to the subsequent. Raleigh isn’t any exception, as that ratio of swings at hittable pitches to unhealthy chases suggests.
The second a part of plate self-discipline is simply propensity to swing. On the excessive, a hitter might simply select by no means to swing in a given rely; then he’d have a 0% chase price in that rely it doesn’t matter what. This isn’t the identical as appropriately figuring out balls from strikes. Tucker and Seager swing much more than Soto does regardless of their equally elite potential to select up on what the pitcher is throwing. James Wooden sports activities an affordable chase price, however that’s partially as a result of he nearly by no means swings; he has one of many lowest coronary heart swing charges within the league.
Altering your potential on that first axis is, as I discussed, practically unimaginable. Everybody would do it if they might, and one course is clearly higher than the opposite. The second axis, propensity to swing, is extra difficult. Swinging extra general isn’t inherently good or unhealthy. If Soto and Lars Nootbaar began swinging much less, they might nearly actually damage their numbers. If Nick Castellanos and Bryce Harper began swinging extra, they’d possible see a downturn in manufacturing, as a result of they’re already fairly aggressive.
That brings us again to Raleigh. Right here’s a easy mannequin in my head: Raleigh is a low-contact, high-power hitter. These two issues are basic. He’s not selecting to be one or the opposite, he simply is. I gathered a cohort of hitters who seemed, in a broad sense, like Raleigh in 2024. These had been hitters who batted at the very least 500 instances, posted a contact price at the very least half a regular deviation beneath league common, and posted an remoted energy at the very least half a regular deviation above league common. In plain English, we’re speaking about low-contact, high-power hitters.
That gave me a bunch of 15 hitters from 2024: Raleigh, Harper, Decide, Willy Adames, Shohei Ohtani, Shea Langeliers, Eugenio Suárez, Rafael Devers, Jake Burger, Colton Cowser, Marcell Ozuna, Kyle Schwarber, Teoscar Hernández, Brent Rooker, Elly De La Cruz. It’s a small pattern, after all, however all of those guys batted a ton in 2024, and I’m largely in fascinated by these teams by way of archetypes. With these 15 in hand, I separated them by their swing charges – low, medium, and excessive. Let’s put it this fashion: For hitters like Raleigh, decrease swing charges appear to work wonders:
Low-Contact, Excessive-Energy Hitters, By Swing Charge
| Group | BB% | Ok% | AVG | OBP | SLG | wRC+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Low Swing% | 14.5% | 27.8% | .271 | .381 | .544 | 158 |
| Medium Swing% | 9.6% | 26.7% | .271 | .345 | .514 | 136 |
| Excessive Swing% | 9.5% | 25.3% | .252 | .329 | .474 | 123 |
Positive, swinging much less leads to some extra strikeouts. However it additionally grants batters much more walks in return, and it’s additionally related to the next slugging proportion. It’s not exhausting to think about why that is perhaps the case: If you happen to swing lots with a low contact price, you’ll find yourself behind in a ton of counts, and the sorts of pitches you see whereas behind will not be conducive to hitting for energy. The entire gamers we’re nonetheless managed to crush the ball. If you happen to’re a high-swing, low-contact hitter, in any case, you higher have some energy. However amongst whiff-prone boppers, the group that swings much less celebrates extra.
Certainly, the proof that Raleigh is making this alteration is in all places. The simplest means to consider it’s that he’s by no means spent the next share of his time within the batter’s field forward within the rely than he has this season. Like most hitters, he hits for lots extra energy when forward within the rely. When he places the ball in play whereas forward within the rely, he has a profession .816 slugging proportion. When he places the ball in play whereas behind, he slugs a mere .508.
What causes that hole? It’s every part. Pitchers need to enterprise into the center of the plate extra ceaselessly when the hitter is forward. Hitters can zone in on a specific pitch or space, taking in the event that they don’t get precisely what they’re searching for. That’s a luxurious they don’t have when behind within the rely. Heck, hitters can simply swing tougher if they need, and lots of do. It’s not a lot that Raleigh has realized learn how to hit when forward within the rely in 2025; he’s all the time identified how to try this. He’s simply getting forward extra ceaselessly, which is giving him extra possibilities to point out off the easiest a part of his sport.
Bear in mind how I mentioned that he’s swinging much less ceaselessly at hittable pitches when forward within the rely? It’s true from a frequency standpoint, little question. However regardless of that, he’s taking extra hacks at hittable pitches per plate look than he ever has earlier than. That’s as a result of he’s getting to those advantageous spots extra usually. He’s seeing extra fastballs over the center of the plate, and swinging at extra fastballs over the center of the plate, too.
Does all of this imply that Raleigh goes to take care of his 170 wRC+? No means. However I do suppose it means he’s very possible to enhance on his numbers as in comparison with the previous, and he was already fairly good prior to now. For hitters like Raleigh – highly effective however whiff-prone – there’s a transparent profit to swinging much less ceaselessly. It forces pitchers to fulfill you within the strike zone extra ceaselessly or threat shedding you to a stroll – and loads of pitchers aren’t keen to take that threat. The associated fee isn’t big, as a result of regardless that Raleigh is surrendering some swings at hittable pitches, he’s producing extra pitches to hit by getting forward within the rely extra usually.
Although nothing else about his sport has modified, a tough translation of his new strategy says that this needs to be value round 5-10 factors of wRC+. As Leo Morgenstern famous immediately, Raleigh is DH’ing extra ceaselessly this 12 months, and whereas he hasn’t hit nicely when DH’ing, the remainder absolutely additionally provides to his offensive prowess; it’s simpler to maintain your physique contemporary to hit if you aren’t all the time taking part in probably the most demanding defensive place on the sector. Mix these two issues, and naturally Raleigh is hitting higher.
Can he maintain this strategy up? I don’t see any motive why not, at the very least within the quick time period. Baseball is a sport of changes, and pitchers should attempt one thing to disrupt Raleigh’s present type. Perhaps they’ll assault the zone early, hoping that his current adjustments result in extra takes and pitchers’ counts. Perhaps they’ll swap to attacking with in-zone secondaries, simply to offer him a unique look. He’s been feasting on every part this 12 months, however notably on fastballs. Perhaps they’ll discover a gap in his swing and drive him to vary one thing else to regulate.
Predictions are exhausting to make, particularly concerning the future. However I can say this surely: Raleigh was swinging an excessive amount of earlier than. It wasn’t a lot a matter of unhealthy pitch recognition; he simply got here up there eager to hit. Dialing that propensity again has made him extra harmful. He was already a profession 111 wRC+ hitter, and now I feel he’s higher than that. Mix that along with his elite protection, and we is perhaps wanting on the new Greatest Catcher in Baseball. Perhaps different energy hitters ought to comply with the Massive Dumper’s lead and simply swing rather less.
