CLE

Cal Raleigh, C

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Scouting report

Teams that had been tracking Raleigh's framing ability since college have been optimistic about him profiling at catcher for longer than most individual scouts, who see a bigger-bodied guy with mobility issues. In 2019, as many orgs have done, Mariners catchers began working on one knee, a move that tends to be favorable for framing but not for throwing, a skill of dwindling importance (at least for now). Perhaps not coincidentally (or perhaps because we were wrong about Raleigh's arm grade last year, when we 55'ed it), reports on Raleigh's arm strength are worse than they were a year ago, though it appears he's a viable long-term catcher, if an unspectacular one. He popped anywhere from 1.9 to 2.04 for me during the spring, but Raleigh's throws tend to drift away from the bag. So while he isn't a run-stopping defensive wizard, Raleigh does enough to catch, and switch-hitting catchers with power like this are rare. And I'm pretty confident about him getting to most of the power in games. Raleigh hit 29 homers in 2019 (most of those coming in the Cal League), he's typically run groundball rates in the low 30% range (meaning he hits the ball in the air a lot), and the sourced TrackMan data to which we have access reinforces the visual evaluation of Raleigh's strength and power. He projects as an everyday catcher and is a Pick to Click to make next year's top 100 who needs to be added to the 40-man this offseason. He could claim the lion's share of big league catching duties next year. (Alternate site)