MLB Home Run Derby 2025: Cal Raleigh's Derby performance puts the finishing touches on his ascent to MLB stardom

Yahoo

16 hours ago

ATLANTA — When Stephanie Raleigh entered her hotel room on Monday morning, she was surprised to find a fresh, navy blue uniform sprawled on the bed. As she approached the jersey, she realized that a note had been scrawled in black pen inside the uniform's crisp, white lettering.
'Mom, I love you so much! Thank you for all of the sacrifice!' — Cal Raleigh, 29
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Hours later, Stephanie was standing on the infield grass at Truist Park as her son, Major League Baseball's home run leader and the unlikely face of this All-Star Weekend, celebrated an emphatic victory in the 2025 Home Run Derby.
The evening was a true family affair. Cal's father, Todd, a retired college coach who had a four-year stint as the head man at the University of Tennessee, played the role of Derby thrower. On the other end of the battery, Cal's behemoth of a 15-year-old brother, Todd Jr., caught all of Cal's rounds on Monday. Multiple other Raleighs donned jerseys, just like Stephanie's, replete with personalized messages.
'He had 'em laying on the bed for us at the hotel room when we got there,' she told Yahoo Sports amidst the event's revelrous aftermath. 'Yeah, we got a little misty-eyed.'
Raleigh's rousing Derby performance served as a coronation of sorts, a capstone to the Mariners catcher's improbable rise from third-round draft pick to national baseball stardom. In cranking 38 first-half home runs, Raleigh undoubtedly solidified himself as the sport's best backstop, a switch-hitting dynamo delivering outrageous offensive production for the position. In three seasons, he has evolved from an unspectacular every-day catcher to a legitimate MVP candidate.
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But while Raleigh has been a popular presence in the Pacific Northwest for a while — that walk-off homer to end Seattle's playoff drought made him a Mariners icon — his magnificent 2025 season has elevated him into a new stratosphere. And his evening Monday on the grand stage was the perfect encapsulation of what makes the Mariners' backstop special: steadiness, consistency, exhilarating raw power from both sides of the dish.
Raleigh's performance only confirmed his new reality: He is simply one of the most recognizable characters in the sport.
And yes, the nickname certainly helps.
In fact, Raleigh's evening began with a genuinely flooring introduction from professional bloviator Pat McAfee.
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"WITH THE FATTEST ASS IN ALL OF PROFESSIONAL SPORTS ...' the ESPN personality hollered to the sellout crowd. 'BIG DUMPER CAL RALEIGH.'
With that, Raleigh was off to the races.
He bopped 17 long balls in the first round, advancing on a bizarre tiebreaker with Athletics DH Brent Rooker, who also slammed 17. With the top four moving on and Raleigh and Rooker tied for fourth, the edge went to Raleigh after it was determined that his longest blast was about an inch farther than Rooker's: 470.61 feet vs. 470.53 feet. That led to some understandable frustration from Rooker but didn't take anything away from Raleigh's performance.
In the semis, Raleigh was matched up against Pirates outfielder Oneil Cruz, who earlier had provided the most jaw-dropping swing of the night. During his first round, Cruz, the only participant who is not an All-Star, launched one a whopping, borderline inconceivable 513 feet. That tank ranks as the single farther home run ever tracked excluding the thin-air launch pad that is Coors Field. It was a truly flabbergasting thing to witness.
From an athletic perspective, Cruz's entire performance was the most impressive part of the evening. He consistently launched balls well over the Chop House high in right field, sending souvenirs raining down on the area beyond the stadium. Eventually, though, he ran out of gas, falling to Raleigh in the semis after the man with the sturdy caboose ripped 19 homers to Cruz's 13.
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That set up a showdown between Raleigh and Tampa Bay third baseman Junior Caminero, a swagged-out, 22-year-old Dominican with a supremely stylish, dangly earring. Caminero, whose bat speed ranks second in the league behind only Cruz, reached the finals after a swift dispatching of Twins outfielder Byron Buxton in the semis.
All night, Caminero peppered the Hank Aaron Terrace down the left-field line, putting media members in the outdoor auxiliary press box in the line of fire. After Raleigh put up 18 in the finals, Caminero threatened to match him with sporadic bursts of power. The Ray finished the timed round needing four homers to tie the Mariners' catcher, but he ran out of steam and fell just short.
Upon the final out, Raleigh high-fived his Mariners teammates in attendance — Randy Arozarena, Brian Woo and Andres Muñoz — before embracing his brother and his father.
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'I don't even know what to say,' Todd Jr. gushed. 'He's just a beast. It couldn't have gone any better.'
Todd Sr., whose batting practice was on point all night, admitted that he has struggled to fully contextualize his son's unbelievable season.
'I mean, people started saying [Johnny] Bench and [Mickey] Mantle,' the longtime ballcoach said. 'It's hard for me. I'm like, 'Well, wait a minute, those guys are baseball legends and gods.' I can't really put my son with that, but the numbers are coming to that. Hard to believe.'
Even though Monday was Cal's first time participating in the annual All-Star dingerfest, it wasn't his first Derby title. In the summer of 2005, an 8-year-old Raleigh emerged victorious in a slightly less heralded home run contest.
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After a travel ball game, Cal went to a picnic at a friend's house. In the yard, a competition materialized as he and his buddies dreamed big-league dreams. The fences were objects out there somewhere — shrubs, trees, other markers in their world of make-believe. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the large kid who would one day be known as Big Dumper clocked the most home runs.
And in what is now-uncharacteristic fashion, Cal Raleigh did a little gloating.
'I'm the home run derby champ,' he blabbered in a delightfully juvenile, sing-songy voice. 'Say it in the pamp, in the wamp, I'm the champ. I'm the home run derby champ.'
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It was true then, and it's still true now.