Baseball’s Best Home Run Hitter Is a Guy Named Big Dumper

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Long before Cal Raleigh was a national sensation, when he was still making his way through the minor leagues, various scouting reports described him as “burly,” a “bigger-bodied guy,” or even a “certified Big Boy.” But this year, as the 28-year-old’s star has formed, risen, and exploded thanks to his historic home-run-hitting pace, he’s gained a new nickname that’s stuck: Big Dumper.

Mariner fans have been referring to Raleigh by this cheeky moniker—a nod to his, ahem, rather large posterior—for years now. Former Mariner outfielder Jarred Kelenic first coined the name in 2020, when both players were prospects practicing with the big club after the minor-league season was cancelled due to COVID. But with Raleigh now in the midst of perhaps the greatest season by a catcher in MLB history, the general public is finally catching on. “Anything that’s posted or printed about me most of the time has something to do with the Big Dumper,” Raleigh told me, laughing, over a recent Zoom call. “Then after that it says Cal Raleigh.” (His mother, for the record, thinks the nickname stinks.)

This is all good fun for Raleigh, who leads the league in home runs—yes, more than Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani—and runs batted in, and still has over half the season left to continue obliterating the record book. His 32 long balls are the most ever by a switch hitter before the All-Star break. When his 30th homer cleared the fence on June 21, he joined Seattle deity Ken Griffey Jr. as the only Mariners to reach that milestone this early in the year.

What has Raleigh been doing differently to become such a lethal force in the batter’s box? The key, he said, has been staying consistent and not changing any part of his gameday preparation. But when you’re outpacing household names like Judge and Ohtani, it begs the question: Did even the Big Dumper himself think he was capable of all this? “Maybe not to this extent,” he admitted. “I knew I was strong and could hit a few balls out of the park, but maybe not to this level.” That level includes six multi-homer games already, including one at Wrigley Field, where his second smash of the day left the stadium entirely.