Two of the biggest disappointments in baseball this season have been catcher Cal Raleigh of the Seattle Mariners and Pittsburgh Pirates ace Paul Skenes. They went from being two of the game's biggest stars to now searching for answers with the regular season winding down.
So what's up with both players this year? FanSided spoke with major league scouts about what has really happened to Raleigh and Skenes in 2026.
Cal Raleigh
Raleigh, last season's runner-up for AL MVP, had 60 homers,125 RBI and a .948 OPS in 2025. This season, he is hitting .183/.296/.374 with a .670 OPS, 21 homers and 59 RBI in 112 games. One National League scout agreed that it has been an "extremely" weird season for Raleigh.
"Some of the batted ball data is down a notch, but the swing characteristics have remained the same from last year," the scout said.
Another NL scout weighed in on what he thinks is going on with Raleigh in his down season.
"There has always been a lot of swing-and-miss (with Raleigh)," the scout said. "Raleigh is also weaker (hitting) from the right side. Teams are just throwing lefties at him as much as possible. He also caught a lot last year and the only teams that played more games than him were the two World Series teams, so there was going to be regression there."
Raleigh is hitting just .161/.265/.308 with a .573 OPS and seven homers against left-handed pitching in 2026. Regarding the swing-and-miss, Raleigh struck out 188 times last season and has a 31.3 percent strikeout rate (bottom sixth percentile) this year, per Baseball Savant.
Raleigh missed over a month of action from May 14 to Jun. 16 with a right oblique strain that he initially attempted to play through. This scout believes the injury and added attention he now draws after last season's performance have also factored into his struggles this year.
"(Raleigh) tried to play through an injury. The combination of the (oblique) injury and teams paying more attention to him," the scout said. "Nobody around him is having a good year. Nobody is hitting around him. He’s always going to be closer to Kyle Schwarber numbers as opposed to Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman numbers."
Paul Skenes
This pair of scouts also spoke about Paul Skenes' drop-off this season as well. Skenes produced back-to-back sub-2.00 ERA seasons in his first two years in the league. But this year has been a different story. In Skenes' first nine starts, he had a 1.98 ERA. In 20 starts since May 17, Skenes has seen his ERA balloon to 3.83 on the season.
Scout No. 1's team is very familiar with Skenes and have seen him up close and personal on a number of occasions this year.
"We’ve faced Skenes numerous times and in his most recent start against us a little over a month ago, our hitters were saying that the stuff was flat," the scout said of Skenes. "Obviously the four-seam velocity is down, which could be due to a variety of factors including fatigue.
"Another mechanical thing that I’ve been hearing is due to the posture and weight distribution on the lift," the scout said. "Weight is concentrated in the middle of his heel. He rocks back and then has a more pronounced torso crunch/dive as he goes into his stride. Seems to be counter-rotating more than in the past, which could be compensation for something.
"There appears to be other things just checking out some video with the arm path being longer and the timing being off (not doing the glove tap anymore)."
Scout No. 2 was less concerned with Skenes' struggles and offered another theory.
"Looking under the hood at his numbers, outside of the ERA, everything else is about consistent with where he has been at," the scout said. "His velocity is down, but I think that’s by design. It’s not sustainable to start 30 games per year and average 99 mph on your fastball.
"I think he is throttling his velo. The Chris Sales, Justin Verlanders, Max Scherzers, have all learned to throttle their velo. Skenes wants to post 30 starts per year. The Pirates have pushed him pretty hard. He’s a big body, so I think he’s going for longevity and doesn’t want to blow out (his arm).
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