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.
Pitch framing is likely wildly overvalued and has been ever since bpro introduced it
That’s just, like, your opinion man
If estimates of framing were accurate, every single catcher would be league MVP every year. It’s conceptually absurd.
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
Revisionist history here. When Cabrera was winning the MVPs over Trout, the voters were on the cusp of embracing sabermetrics to truly evaluate a player’s worth. Even in the early 2010s, traditional stats such as batting avg and RBIs still loomed large. Add in the narrative boost and boom MVP goes to Cabrera.
It’s still cool when someone does something special in regards to the traditional stats; however, sabermetrics now play a much larger role in the voting for the end of year awards.
Still, Judge’s season lacks a hook. Acuña and Betts were very similar players by WAR but Acuña had 40/70 and he won unanimously. That was two years ago. WAR still isn’t everything and anyone who does look to WAR would surely also know that bref is slighting Cal in its model.
lol a 213 ops+ should be a hook. better than any trout or cabrera season and better than judges 62 homer season
That’s just another way of saying he has been insanely valuable this year, but it isn’t useful as narrative. If the MVP were the “highest WAR award” then yes he would and should win.
I think MVP’s a legitimate tossup, but how’s this for a hook:
Here’s a complete list of players who’ve beaten Judge’s current 214 OPS+ since WWII:
Ted Williams (2x)
Mark McGwire (1)
Mickey Mantle (1)
Barry Bonds (4)
Aaron Judge (1)
He’s not just “insanely valuable,” there’s a good argument he’s having one of the 10 best offensive seasons of all time.
It’s crazy to me that the best hitter we’ve seen since Bonds plays for the Yankees and still he’s somehow underrated. It’s almost like the brain has difficulty conceptualizing the numbers difference when the OPS creeps past 1.000.
Judge could win on the strength of this, but it isn’t a hook. It just isn’t. “Over 200 OPS+” just isn’t a narrative. If it were, Raleigh wouldn’t be the easy favorite. Judge’s odds of winning, as an underdog, rest in having a slight edge in fWAR and a much bigger one in bWAR. Yes, he is also by far the better offensive player, but if he had poor defense and Raleigh were leading him in WAR, Raleigh would be -2,000, or maybe -20,000, instead of -200. It’s just the WAR advantage keeping Judge alive in this.
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 don’t know that they’re ever going to get tired of giving it to Ohtani.
As long as Ohtani keeps producing new reasons to show how unique he is. Last year was definitely an opening with him not pitching, but he took care of that with the 50/50 season. Now that he is pitching better than ever, I’m expecting him to have the highest war of his career next season (e.g. 5 pitching war + 6 batting) to keep the MVP streak going.
And maybe later in his career he will win one while playing OF. 🙂
It also helps Ohtani that there simply is no one else to give it to this year. Schwarber is basically a slightly worse version of Ohtani at the plate who can’t run and doesn’t pitch and he could very well finish second.
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
The idea of a player hitting under .250 winning MVP over a guy with a 200 wRC+ season is insane
That’s just picking a few metrics. No one is saying Judge is not having a historic season. But Raleigh’s may be even more of an outlier given his position and playing in a ballpark that depresses offense more than any other. I don’t find it insane to believe that Raleigh may be the most valuable player this season. Catchers don’t win many MVP’s. Best BWAR ever by a catcher is 8.7 so Raleigh is likely having a Top 10 season as well, for his position.
Quoting batting average and wRC+ in the same sentence. On FG no less.
Yeah man. God forbid somebody think about anything any differently to you all on the hivemind here. Would you like to analyze all the other ways Raleigh is wildly inferior to Judge, or are you solely interested in arguing with my dislike of the aesthetic of a sub-.250 hitter?
Yeah, famously no one at Fangraphs has any interest in batting average or how much it matters. Completely disregarded and treated as antiquated.
Oh, wait.
I do think there is so much uncertainty in how much a catcher does for a team, and uncertainty in the actual differences in MLB catchers, to say that it isn’t certain who has been best. It is certain who has been best by the things that we are fairly sure we pretty much have nailed as far as how to value them, and that is Judge.
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.
The positional adjustment does not get spoken about enough and is why I believe WAR underrates Judge. Outside of his injury, he was not playing DH because he was incapable of producing value in the field. The RF positional adjustment is probably also underrating him because we know he can play a roughly/ slightly below average CF if he was needed. The Yankees are not being forced to play a low-value bat in CF because of his lack of skill. This is why I think Judge should win (in addition to being far and away the best offensive player in the league).
I think you’re mistaking “how much value has Aaron Judge produced,” which is what WAR is attempting to measure, for “what is Aaron Judge’s true talent level,” where things like his theoretical ability to play CF come into play
Not really. My point is that I don’t think he should be penalized as strongly as other corner outfielders/DH because the Yankees are configured in a way that allows him to DH (due Stanton never being healthy) and play RF because they have two good defensive OFers. I think the way the players team is made up should be taken into account when thinking about positional adjustments.
He’s a bit of a tweeter defensively, he is probably better off in a corner (especially since it’s better to have him running around there less).
I think the point I was trying to make with that is that it is hard to imagine giving Raleigh a bigger bump for playing catcher than the positional adjustment, and also it’s hard to imagine docking Judge more than his positional adjustment. Those are both fairly extreme adjustments…and Judge still comes out ahead.
But who knows, maybe Cal Raleigh hits another few homers and Judge scuffles and Raleigh catches up? Not likely but possible.
Counterargument on the positional adjustment difference being too big: Austin Hedges. Dude has had a job and 100+ PA for the past 7 years despite never having a WRC+ above 50 or a BA above .190.
I’d be hard-pressed to think of a corner outfielder that comes anywhere near that profile for such an extended period of time.
To me, this illustrates that teams really do value the tangibles (e.g. framing) and intangibles (e.g. managing a pitching staff) that good catchers bring to the table, and they believe they know “good” when they see it.
Teams aren’t always right, but I think we’re well past the point that nerds are smarter than teams (who now employ very smart nerds) in any consistent way.
Just saying that teams’ roster decisions tend to reinforce that catcher is the most valuable defensive position by a wide margin, to the point of tolerating awful offense.
I think it is absolutely true that catcher should get the largest positional adjustment. But the combination of the positional adjustment and the extreme values the framing measure spits back is likely leading catchers with positive framing to be overvalued. I think the issue is probably with the framing numbers rather than the positional adjustment itself, but I could see someone arguing the reverse.
Austin Hedges is a pretty good example of this. He’s not just valuable, he’s been worth 1.2 fWAR in 178 PAs. Over 600 PAs he would be worth something like 4 wins, with a wRC+ of 49. He’s been worth about as much as Bo Naylor despite Bo Naylor having over twice as many PAs and a wRC+ that is 30 points higher. But they don’t play Hedges more often than Naylor.
Albert Pujols in 2010, after he’d won MVP in 08 and 09, led in WAR, HR, RBI, and OPS+.
Todd Helton in 2000 as well. Arod in 2002. Matt Kemp in 2011.
That’s an interesting list. Impressive that you were able to pull that up. A-Rod and Pujols were clearly “we want to give it to someone new.” Helton is because nobody believed in Coors. The Kemp situation…I don’t remember what happened there.
The Brewers made the playoffs and the Dodgers didn’t. That used to be a major factor.
Oh yeah, that is something that seems to have receded a little bit, now it is if you’re not in the playoff race. It still is a factor but aside from Ohtani we haven’t had any obvious MVP players on non-competitive teams and they weren’t going to avoid giving it to him for that.
I thought he’d win anyway as long as Judge’s WAR didn’t trounce his, based partially on voter fatigue as well as his already historic season. But we are now looking at the second 60+ homer season outside the steroid era in expansion era, over the last 60 years, and it is a catcher. And he’s a good catcher and his team just won the pennant for the first time in 24 years. Time to break out the Vince Carter gif. It’s over.
A 60-HR, switch hitting even REASONABLY good defensive catcher? That’s a unicorn even among unicorns. It would be a crime not to give that man the MVP trophy.