Raleigh, 22, was selected in the third round of the 2018 MLB Draft out of Florida State. After reaching a deal with the Mariners in July of 2018 and playing 38 games with the Short-A Everett AquaSox, he played his first full season of professional baseball this past year.

You could say it went alright.

Splitting time between the High-A Modesto Nuts and Double-A Arkansas Travelers, he posted a .251/.323/.497 slash line, good for a .820 OPS. He hit more home runs, 29, than any other Mariners prospect—and any catching prospect in minor league baseball.

“To be honest, I didn’t really know what to expect,” Raleigh said of that first complete season in the Mariners organization. “I don’t know if I really had any goals—it was just going out there and wanting to play and play well. I had a good time and learned a lot from a lot of people.”

And play well, he did. The home run barrage he launched in his final few weeks in the Cal League had fans joking the circuit was now named for him—and not the state in which it resides.

From July 3rd through the 14th, he hit nine home runs in 11 games. It was 15 bombs in his final 24 games in Modesto, before earning the call up to Double-A Arkansas, where he caught a group that was comprised of some of the best pitching prospects in the organization.

And as good as his offense was in 2019, he knows where his priorities as a lie.

“You have to remember, the pitchers come first. Catching comes first,” he said. “That’s my number-one job is taking care of those guys, having good relationships with them.”

That relationship-building should pay dividends going forward.

Raleigh caught, according to MLB Pipeline’s rankings, nine of the organization’s top 16 pitching prospects.