A Cal Raleigh Home Run Update
He did it! Cal Raleigh launched his 60th home run of the season last night, joining a rare club of elite sluggers. In hitting 60 so quickly, he’s left himself with a chance to match Aaron Judge’s American League record of 62, or perhaps even surpass it. With four games left in the season, how likely is it? I fired up my computer to ask. As a refresher, last week I modeled Raleigh’s home run hitting talent, the parks he’ll play in, and his scheduled opposition to work out which side of the plate he’ll hit from and how likely he is to hit a home run in any given plate appearance the rest of the way. Then I simulated the season a million times to work out the probability of each milestone.
Last week, 60 home runs looked likely but not certain. Now that it’s in the bag, naturally 62 home runs looks meaningfully more likely:
| Day | Opponent | Home/Away | Odds of 62nd Homer | Cumulative Odds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9/25 | Rockies | Home | 6.1% | 6.1% |
| 9/26 | Dodgers | Home | 9.5% | 15.6% |
| 9/27 | Dodgers | Home | 11.0% | 26.6% |
| 9/28 | Dodgers | Home | 12.1% | 38.7% |
I didn’t bother with a table, but it’s worth noting that if you desperately want to see homer number 61 in person, you should go today. The Rockies pitching staff has already served up two home runs to the Big Dumper, and my model gives him about a 1-in-3 chance of hitting another off of them. On the other hand, if you want to see homer number 63, you’ll need to wait until the last minute:
| Day | Opponent | Home/Away | Odds of 63rd Homer | Cumulative Odds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9/25 | Rockies | Home | 0.6% | 0.6% |
| 9/26 | Dodgers | Home | 2.4% | 3.0% |
| 9/27 | Dodgers | Home | 4.7% | 7.6% |
| 9/28 | Dodgers | Home | 7.0% | 14.6% |
A 15% chance is better than I expected, but then again, Raleigh got to 60 in the earlier part of the distribution I had previously forecast, so it makes sense that his odds of hitting bigger milestones have increased. Bigger numbers like 66 and 70? They’re still not really on the table, with less than a 1-in-400 chance of him hitting 66. But man, what a performance. Raleigh’s season continues to be one for the ages.
Ben is a writer at FanGraphs. He can be found on Bluesky @benclemens.
I’m predicting that Raleigh’s going to win MVP in a landslide, though it might not be unanimous. WAR is close enough that Raleigh’s huge advantage in history-making narrative–60 HR is a big round number that few have ever reached; most HR and best season ever by a catcher; most HR by a switch hitter; passing Junior for most HR by a Mariner–is going to win him the award in a cakewalk.
Depends on which WAR the writers use. Using BBREF’s WAR, it’s not particularly close.
I wouldn’t go with baseball references war for catchers as it doesn’t account for pitch framing.
Yeah but BREF WAR is kinda obviously the wrong way to measure catchers. It doesn’t take into account framing at all, so it says Cal is a below average defensive catcher. That’s what creates the chasm between Judge and Cal in Bwar. In this case, one measure is clearly better than the other.
I’m not making a judgment regarding which version evaluates catchers better. Based on what I’ve seen, the media tends to cite BREF more often than FWAR
I think Judge voter fatigue will factor into it too.
I don’t know if it’s voter fatigue as much as “coolness”/“history” factor. Trout didn’t have voter fatigue against Miguel Cabrera. Voters just chose “guy who did something that hadn’t happened in 40+ years that we weren’t sure would ever happen again” over “guy who was even better”.
I think we could have a similar thing here of voters choosing the “guy who did a bunch of things nobody’s ever done before” over “guy who had an even better season that’s also uncommon but not as rare as what the other guy did”.
I do think there’s a tiny bit of voter fatigue (or something related to it) because Judge hasn’t really been very good in the playoffs yet. He falls on his face to some degree and then the MVP news comes out. I think subconsciously that may be a tiny tiebreaker for some
And Mariners’ surge, winning the division and potentially getting the 1 seed after years of futility, along with the “fatigue” factor with Judge/Ohtani among some circles, all work in Raleigh’s favor.
I agree with the assessment.
That said I don’t actually think the cases are that close and that Judge has been much better at the stuff we can clearly measure and catcher framing on top of trailing by 40 points in wRC+ should give it to Judge. This isn’t Trout losing to Miggy in that it would be manifestly unjust but it is clear who the best player has been
I don’t know about landslides but I think the writers are going to work very hard to avoid giving it to Aaron Judge, and so it will almost certainly go to Raleigh. They’re getting bored with him. Even last year, everyone was so fixated on Ohtani’s 50-50 season they were kind of like “oh, Aaron Judge is good too.”
When was the last time a player led MLB in WAR and also led his specific league in two out of three triple crown categories and lost the MVP? To say nothing of leading the AL / NL / majors in wRC+, RE24, OBP+, SLG+, AVG+, and ISO+?
The writers typically write a column about their choice, and it’s hard to write a column saying “the best offensive player outside of the steroid era since Mickey Mantle is still that same guy.” They want to write about something new, and something new is that someone else led MLB in homers, even though that (and RBI) are basically the only two offensive categories he doesn’t lead his league / the majors in. And they’ll justify it by saying that he plays catcher and Judge doesn’t, even though Judge is far ahead in bWAR and the incredibly generous positional adjustment and framing grades in fWAR still have Judge ahead.
Aaron Judge is perhaps the only underrated Yankee ever, and is going to be one of the most underrated players of all time if he keeps doing this and they keep giving the MVP to someone else. Our brains cannot handle what he is doing.