Mariners' Top 5 catchers

No one loves a good debate quite like baseball fans, and with that in mind, we asked each of our beat reporters to rank the top five players by position in the history of their franchise, based on their career while playing for that club. These rankings are for fun and debate purposes only.

Here is MLB.com's ranking of the top 5 catchers in Mariners history.

1. Dan Wilson, 1994-2005

There’s a reason Wilson is the only catcher to have been elected to the Mariners Hall of Fame to date. He was the starting backstop on each of the first four Seattle teams that advanced to the playoffs (1995, ’97, 2000 and ’01), and he is regarded as the glue that helped keep together clubs that were headlined by bigger names like Ken Griffey Jr., Randy Johnson and Alex Rodriguez.

Until Cal Raleigh in 2025, Wilson was the only Mariners catcher to have been selected to an American League All-Star team (1996) and he has the franchise record for most games, hits, doubles, triples, RBIs and walks by a catcher. His .995 fielding percentage was the highest of any qualified catcher in AL history at the time of his retirement, while posting a .262/.309/.382 slash line with 88 homers.

2. Cal Raleigh, 2021-present
By the time it’s all said and done, there’s a good chance that “Big Dumper” is No. 1 on this list -- which would mean supplanting his longtime mentor and current manager. At this rate, he could also join Wilson in the Mariners Hall of Fame. Raleigh has been on that kind of trajectory since breaking into the Majors in 2021, but really, his career didn’t reach the sport’s upper echelon until 2025, when he became the first catcher and switch-hitter in history to hit 60 homers. He also won that year’s Home Run Derby and led the Mariners to their first AL West title since 2001, when Wilson was still behind the dish.

3. Mike Zunino, 2013-18
Zunino’s six years in Seattle were viewed by many as disappointing given his .207 batting average after being selected with the third overall selection in the 2009 MLB Draft. But the young backstop was an excellent defender with good power and he posted the second-highest fWAR (13.6) of any Mariners catcher, behind only Wilson’s 14.2 despite playing less than half the number of games.

Zunino hit .251 with 25 homers and an .840 OPS in 124 games in 2017, but saw those numbers drop in ’18 before being traded to the Rays prior to '19 along with Guillermo Heredia and Michael Plassmeyer for outfielders Mallex Smith and Jake Fraley.

4. Dave Valle, 1984-93
After being drafted in the second round in 1978 out of Holy Cross High in Flushing, N.Y., Valle developed into a solid and durable backstop who spent the first 10 seasons of a 13-year MLB career in Seattle. Valle has the third-highest career fWAR among Mariners catchers at 10.7, and while he wasn’t regarded as much of an offensive threat, his OPS of .682 is tied with Wilson’s career mark.

5. Kenji Johjima, 2006-09
Johjima spent just four seasons in Seattle, but put up good offensive numbers with a .268/.310/.411 line and 48 homers and 198 RBIs in 462 games before returning to Japan to close out his career. He finished fourth in AL Rookie of the Year voting in 2006 and set a rookie record for most hits by a catcher with 147 while batting .291 with 18 homers.