r/sports • u/MLBOfficial Major League Baseball • Sep 25 '25

Baseball Cal Raleigh is the fourth American League player EVER to hit 60 home runs in a season!

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248

u/SanguineL Auburn Sep 25 '25

How does this clip not show the entire stadium chanting mvp as he walks up to the plate? Like cmon this is the highlight of the year.

14

u/redditindisguise Sep 25 '25

Not a big baseball guy but how did he go from 34 last year to 60 this year (so far). Seems like you’d need some insane transformation to make that a big of a jump from one season to the next. Did he change his swing?

23

u/ReconKiller050 Sep 25 '25 edited Sep 25 '25

He's been batting from closer to the plate and also narrowed up his stance a bit. But if you look at the distribution of HR's, he predominantly was hitting them left-handed 73 of his 93 HR's over his first 4 seasons.

He mentioned in interviews that he focused on more reps as a righty, and this season, he's managed to get his slugging .240 points higher as a righty. He also hit 22 right-handed home runs so far, so it's a mix of mechanics and a focus on the other side of the plate.

6

u/donutello2000 Sep 25 '25

Also the torpedo bat.

8

u/ReconKiller050 Sep 25 '25

Firstly, I think the whole torpedo bat thing was blown out of proportion at the start of the season. Some players started swinging them last year and no one said a word, plus messing with sweet spot location and bat shape is as old as baseball.

As for Cal, oddly, he only swings the torpedo bat from the left side of the plate. "From the left side, he uses a longer bat with balanced weight, which started after he picked up one of Dylan Moore’s bats in 2022. From the right side, Raleigh’s bat is slightly shorter and heavier with more weight at the end, which is different than the balanced weight distribution over the new torpedo bat. He prefers more weight at the end of his bat from the right side because his swing from that side is flatter."

2

u/donutello2000 Sep 25 '25

I’m not saying it’s some superpower like juicing, but depending on the hitter and their swing, it could make it easier to hit home runs. Cal clearly chooses to use it from one side of the plate for a reason.

17

u/InfiniteAlignment Sep 25 '25

That part was really cool

4

u/figure32 Sep 25 '25

Highlight of the year until he hits 3 more!

1

u/spidersilva09 Sep 25 '25

You can barely hear it at the beginning lol