Hitting a baseball is considered one of the hardest things to do in sports. While most players hit from the side of the plate that aligns with their dominant hand, some have developed the skill to hit effectively from both sides of the plate.
Switch hitters tend to see the handedness of the pitcher they are about to face, and they will swing from the opposite batter’s box. This gives them an advantage to see a better angle on the release of the baseball, and since the sport is a game of seconds, they will take any advantage they can get.
Switch-hitting is already an impressive feat, but doing it for power is even more impressive. The all-time single-season home run record belongs to Barry Bonds, who hit 73 in 2001. To illustrate the difficulty of switch hitting, the most home runs by a switch hitter in a single season heading into 2025 was 54, set by Mickey Mantle in 1961.
Since then, some other players have come close, but the most a switch-hitter had was 45 by Chipper Jones in 1999. Then, Cal Raleigh happened. He was seeing beach balls at the plate in 2025 and went on to set the record for most home runs hit by a catcher in a single season. Raleigh set that record in August and had more than a month remaining of the season to surpass Mantle.
Here is more on how Raleigh’s 2025 campaign compares to the highest home-run totals all-time for a switch-hitter in a single season.
MORE: 16 NFL stars you never knew were also drafted by MLB teams
1. Mickey Mantle, 54, Yankees (1961)
Mickey Mantle is one of the greatest baseball players of all time. Known as “the Mick” and “the Commerce Comet,” Mantle debuted for the Yankees in 1951 and spent his entire 17-year career with the franchise. He was a 20x All-Star and won seven World Series titles in New York. Mantle was a three-time MVP, led the American League in home runs four times and his No. 7 is retired by the Yankees. Mantle was a first ballot Hall of Famer, inducted in 1974.
Mantle’s 1961 season was one for the record books. Both he and teammate Roger Maris were chasing Babe Ruth’s 162-game home run record. Maris ended up winning their battle, hitting 61, and Mantle finished with 54 before an injury sidelined the rest of his regular season. He returned in the playoffs, still battling injuries, but that didn’t stop him from hitting a home run against the Reds.
MORE: Oldest MLB players to participate in a game
2. Mickey Mantle, 52, Yankees (1956)
Mickey Mantle finds himself on this list for the second time, and spoiler alert, it won’t be the last time you see him. The center fielder was only 24 years old in 1956, but he flirted with history even then, falling nine home runs shy of breaking Babe Ruth’s single-season record. Ruth hit 60 in a single season in 1927. While 1961 was the year he hit the most home runs in a season in his career, 1956 was even more special because he not only hit 52 home runs, but also won his first MVP Award.
MORE: Revisiting Lou Gehrig’s ‘Luckiest Man Alive’ speech
3. Cal Raleigh, 51, Mariners (2025)
Cal Raleigh came out of nowhere in 2025. He had been in the majors for four seasons with Seattle and had risen to prominence for being a switch-hitter and for his nickname being “Big Dumper” because of his ample posterior. Still, over his first four seasons, the most home runs he hit were 34 in 2024. Raleigh had steadily been improving since his debut in 2021, but his 30 home runs in 2023 and 34 the following year felt like they were his ceiling.
Raleigh then set the record for most home runs hit by a catcher before the All-Star break. He went on to win the Home Run Derby and set his sights on more records. He surpassed Salvador Perez for the most home runs hit by a catcher on Aug. 24, hitting two home runs against the Athletics.
CAL RALEIGH’S 49TH HOMER! THE MOST BY A CATCHER IN A SEASON IN MLB HISTORY! pic.twitter.com/wFXLoCkQyG
— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) August 24, 2025
Since setting the record, Raleigh has hit two more home runs. At 51 home runs, he is three away from tying Mantle and four from passing him. Barring an injury or a hitting slump, he is on pace to achieve both.
MORE: Most home runs by a catcher in a single season
T-4. Chipper Jones, 45, Braves (1999)
Chipper Jones is one of the best third basemen in the history of baseball. He spent his entire 18-year career in Atlanta, was an eight-time All-Star and was named the NL MVP in 1999. Jones had his No. 10 retired by the Braves and was a first-ballot Hall of Famer in 2018. He finished his career with 468 home runs, the third most in a switch-hitter’s career at the time.
You could argue that Jones shouldn’t have been the NL’s MVP in 1999. He didn’t lead the league in home runs, RBI or batting average. Jones finished with great numbers, hitting .319 with 45 home runs and 110 RBI. Still, he received 29 of 32 first-place MVP votes, with many saying his four home runs and seven RBI in a critical late-season series against the Mets that helped the Braves make the playoffs as what earned him the award.
MORE: Bob Uecker’s greatest quotes
T-4. Lance Berkman, 45, Astros (2006)
Lance Berkman was one of the famous Killer B’s in Houston. The group consisted of Sean Berry, Derek Bell, Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell, and they were some of the best hitters in the franchise’s history that all happened to be playing at the same time. When Berry and Bell left the team, Berkman fit in perfectly and took up the mantle.
He had a 14-year career, spending 11 of them in Houston. Berkman was a six-time All-Star, was the Comeback Player of the Year Award in 2011 and won the World Series that year with the Cardinals.
MORE: Is sign stealing illegal in baseball?
6. Anthony Santander, 44, Orioles (2024)
Anthony Santander came into the league in 2017 in the Orioles organization. While he always had a good swing, it felt like his power numbers were never going to be what he was known for. Then, something happened in 2024.
Santander launched 44 home runs in Baltimore, on his way to his first and only All-Star nod. It was a result that saw him get paid in the offseason by the Blue Jays, but he struggled to stay healthy in Toronto and didn’t come close to reproducing his power from the year before.
MORE: MLB pitchers with 3,000 strikeouts
7. Mark Teixeira, 43, Rangers (2005)
Mark Teixeira had a 13-year career from 2003 to 2016. He came up with the Rangers but was part of an infamous trade with the Braves in 2007. Teixeira turned down a monster eight-year, $140 million deal from Texas, and they traded him to the Braves for Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Elvis Andrus, Neftali Feliz and two other prospects. The trade became infamous because the first baseman signed a one-year deal for 2008 with Atlanta but was then traded to the Angels for Casey Kotchman. He finished out that season with L.A. and then signed an eight-year, $180 million deal with the Yankees.
Teixeira was always serviceable, but he never re-captured the success he had in 2005 with the Rangers.
MORE: Meet Glenn Burke, MLB’s first openly gay player
T-8. Mickey Mantle, 42, Yankees (1958)
Mickey Mantle makes his third appearance on this list thanks to his 1958 campaign that resulted in 42 deep flies. He hit .304 that season and added 97 RBI. Part of the reason Mantle didn’t have as many home runs is that he was walked 129 times that year. That was the second-most walks Mantle drew in a single season in his career. Although an updated exact metric isn’t readily available, Plate Crate determined that the average MLB hitter drew 45 walks in 2022. Mantle would have drawn nearly three times the amount of walks as a regular hitter in 1958.
Mickey Mantle and Hank Aaron get together before a spring training game, March 1, 1958. pic.twitter.com/tWuah8ZyWg
— Baseball In Pics (@baseballinpix) February 13, 2023
MORE: Why is Jhostynxon Garcia nicknamed “The Password”
T-8. Lance Berkman, 42, Astros (2002)
Lance Berkman makes his second appearance on this list. In each of his first four seasons in Houston, Berkman improved. He hit four home runs in limited action as a rookie, then hit 21 in 2000, 34 in 2001 and then 42 in 2002. That marked the second season that he was named an All-Star and he finished third in MVP voting, which was the second-highest finish of his career for the award. 29 of Berkman’s home runs that season came before the All-Star break which had him in a tie for the most before the break by a switch hitter, before that was broken in 2025 by Cal Raleigh.
Berkman was also known for his fielding. The same year that he hit 42 home runs, he made an incredible running catch up the hill, yes you read that right, that used to be in center field in Houston.
Throwback to when Lance Berkman made an incredible catch on Tal’s Hill on May 18th 2002. pic.twitter.com/HVAChtoDbR
— Yordaddy 🔫 (@Yordaddy2025mvp) July 25, 2024
MORE: How Yankees threatened single-game HR record vs. Rays
T-10. Todd Hundley, 41, Mets (1996)
Todd Hundley may be the first one on this list that younger baseball fans haven’t heard of. He played in the bigs for 13 years from 1990 to 2003. His 1996 season was his best with 41 home runs, and he wasn’t able to hit more than 30 in any of his other seasons. He was an All-Star twice in his career, with 1996 being his first. Like Raleigh, Hundley was also a catcher, but he bounced around the NL with the Mets, Dodgers and Cubs back when there wasn’t a DH in the National League, so he caught every game he played.
MORE: How Cal Raleigh honored his Mariners teammates at the Little League Classic
T-10. Carlos Beltran, 41, Mets (2006)
Carlos Beltran had a 19-year career that spanned three decades. He debuted in 1998 with the Royals, but he is most known for his tenure with the Mets from 2005 to 2011. Beltran won the 1999 Rookie of the Year Award, was named an All-Star nine times, and infamously won the 2017 World Series with the Astros. He finished with 435 career home runs, the fourth-most by a switch-hitter. His best season came in 2006 when he clobbered 41 home runs. Beltran won a Gold Glove and Silver Slugger Award that season, and finished fourth in MVP voting.
MORE: Ranking the 11 most memorable Subway Series moments in history
