Cal Raleigh's 2026 HR Over Is the Right Side — But Not for the Reasons Books Are Pricing

Cal Raleigh will not hit 60 home runs again in 2026. He knows it. The market knows it. Raleigh said as much himself on Brock & Salk this spring: "That's not something I'm setting out to do. I'm just trying to be as consistent as possible." Sports Illustrated The useful betting question isn't whether he repeats history — it's whether books have correctly priced the regression.

They haven't, but not in the direction most bettors assume.

The Regression Case Is Real, So Don't Dismiss It

Raleigh exceeded his expected home run total by 9 dingers in 2025 — more than any other player in baseball — and hit 15 home runs that would have only left the yard in 1–7 parks. Sports Betting Dime His no-doubter percentage was lower than the prior season. That's not a profile you blindly project forward. His 60 HR nearly doubled his previous career high of 34, on only 50 additional at-bats, without a dramatic spike in hard-hit rate or fly-ball rate. Some of 2025 was genuine improvement. Some was variance.

Circa Sports projects him in the 40–45 HR range with 100+ RBI for 2026 Sports Illustrated — a band that reflects legitimate regression toward his underlying contact profile rather than a collapse.

Why the Over Still Makes Sense

Here's what the regression narrative misses: Raleigh's 2022 and 2023 seasons showed the same pull-side power profile, just without the fly-ball luck. He turned in his first career 30-homer season in 2023, and his 91 home runs since 2022 are 18 more than any other catcher in that span. RotoWire The floor is legitimately elite at the position.

The mechanical changes that fueled 2025 — the torpedo bat adoption, the adjusted stance — don't disappear. He sustained a HR/FB rate above 22% in every single month of 2025 RotoWire, which isn't a hot streak, it's a new baseline. If that rate normalizes slightly but holds, 40–45 HR is the floor, not a ceiling.

The lineup context also matters. Julio Rodriguez, Jorge Polanco, and a healthy Mariners core means Raleigh sees RBI situations — pitchers can't pitch around him the way they might an isolated power bat.

The Actual Bet

Books currently have Raleigh fourth in MLB HR leader odds, behind Judge (+350), Ohtani (+400), and Schwarber (+800). Sports Betting Dime That's the right ordering. Don't bet Raleigh to lead the league.

Do take the HR season total over if books are still posting it near 32.5. That number is T-Mobile park-factor overcorrection pricing a player whose three-year floor is 30+ as if he might not clear it. Even with meaningful regression from 2025, a 40-homer season clears 32.5 comfortably.

Total bases over 1.5 in individual games against right-handed starters is the sharper daily prop. His career splits versus righties are elite for the position, and catcher scarcity in DFS pricing hasn't caught up to what he's become.

Spring Noise

His 0-for-4 against the Angels on March 15 means nothing. Catchers in spring training are conditioning tools, not production showcases. He's already hit his first spring training homer and is building up legs for a 140-game workload. Check back when the roof opens at T-Mobile in April.

The 2026 version of Cal Raleigh is not the freak-variance outlier of 2025. He's a 40-homer catcher on a playoff-caliber team, signed through his prime. Books pricing him like he might regress to the mean of the position are still wrong — just in a less dramatic way than last year.