The 50 greatest Mariners catchers, as chosen by Eric

2026 is the Mariners’ 50th season, and the team is holding a live vote for the 50 “greatest” Mariners that you can go participate in right now. Ryan Blake posted his 50 greatest, as chosen by him, and Zach Mason created an absolutely devilish 50 greatest Mariner left fielders list, a position that has long been cursed by this franchise for reasons that defy all logic. I’m going to borrow Zach’s format and we’re going to continue to defy most conventional logic today, as I’ve chosen another position that, outside a few very awesome outliers, has also been quite cursed for the last 50 years of Mariners baseball. That’s right, the catcher. Those who don the Tools of Ignorance. The backstop. The guys with bad knees, bad backs, and more bruises than a dropped peach. This post is designed to drive a certain staffer insane (his name rhymes with “Hack Nottschalk” and boy does he hate catchers who can’t hit) and it will surely inspire a spirited discussion in the comments. We are going to reach a nuclear level of Remembering Some Guys here.

My methodology is simple.

1. Only choosing catchers since 1989, which is when I can best recollect that I became truly conscious of the Mariners. Here are top 5 pre-1989 Mariners catchers real quick, though: Ray Fosse, Bob Stinson, Jim Essian, Kevin Pasley, and Bill Plummer.
2. Minimum game(s) played: 1

Everything else is purely subjective. If I left anyone off the list, it was probably on purpose (especially you, Rob Johnson). Without further ado, let’s get into it.

50. Harry Ford

Had to do it to him. Happy trails, buddy.

49. Tuffy Gosewisch

Somehow only played in 10 games with the Mariners, felt like a lot more. 80 grade name, -10 grade bat.

48. Brandon Bantz

Played one game in 2013, 2 ABs, no hits, no walks, 1 strike out. The platonic ideal trivia question answer. What a legend.

47. Mike Marjama

Another great trivia day question. What season was he the opening day catcher? (/every LLer from the mid 00’s rushes to comment section).

46. Seby Zavala

Boy, did this guy suck. Literally only here because of his name and because staff writer Bee said she’d eat a live spider if he ever hit a home run, which he did exactly once. We didn’t hold her to it because Bee claimed she has eaten her fair share of spiders in her sleep, which is true and totally fair. As have we all.

45. Joseph Odom
44. Joe Hudson
43. Curt Casali
42. Chris Herrmann
41. Brian O’Keefe
40. Jose Godoy

Grouping these guys together because they’re all from 2018 to now and all played a handful of games and were either extremely bad (Casali), forgettable (Hudson, Odom), or had a slightly quirky/memorable name (Herrmann, O’Keefe, and Waiting for Godoy). Y’all did your best.

39. Tom Lampkin

Lampkin hit pretty well for 3 seasons as Dan Wilson’s back-up and posted 0.9 WAR at age 37 for the 2001 Mariners, which is arguably more impressive than anything I did in my age 37 season.

38. Miguel Olivo

Oh boy, did this guy suck. But, like in a funny way. Olivo struck out 329 games in 321 career games with the Mariners. Holy shit. After his Mariners days were over, he infamously bit a teammate’s ear during a dugout brawl.

37. Wiki Gonzalez
36. Chris Gimenez
35. Robert Machado
34. Joe Oliver
33. Rene Rivera
32. Jamie Burke
31. Jeff Clement
30. John Buck
29. Yorvit Torrealba
28. Guillermo Quiroz
27. Miguel Ojeda

Grouping these guys together because they’re mostly unremarkable, but not terrible. John Buck is on the list because he got cut from the Mariners on his birthday. Torrealba and Quiroz are here because they have memorable names.

26. Bill Hasselman

Hasselmann is one of those early 90’s guys who was better in my memory than he actually was and also had a fun last name.

25. Pat Borders
24. Kelly Shoppach
23. Henry Blanco
22. Wellington Castillo

Grouping these dudes together because they all had career years for other teams (Castillo, who seemingly took a blood oath to kill the Mariners every time he played them after Jack Z traded him to the D-Backs for Mark Trumbo) and/or were at the end of their career when they got to the Mariners (Blanco aka HANK WHITE, Borders, and Shoppach). Blanco also memorably hit a grand slam versus the Rockies in one of his last MLB games with the Mariners in 2013.

21. Ben Davis

Davis more or less split catching duties with late-career Dan Wilson and was overall pretty decent. Same name as a famous work wear brand.

20. Eliezer Alfonzo

80-grade catcher name, that’s the only reason I remember him.

19. Josh Bard

Josh Bard has had a better coaching career than catching career, but he caught 65 games for the extremely bad 2010 and 2011 Mariners.

18. Adam Moore

For no logical reason, I enjoyed rooting for Moore in 2009 and 2010 and thought 2011 would be his season to fully become the starter, but then he tore his meniscus and never played for the Mariners again.

17. David Freitas

David Freitas is here because he is/was a total sweetheart and friend of the blog. He would always give Kate and others the time of day for questions. In the world of being a Mariners catcher, being a decent person goes a long way in endearing yourself to fans.

16. Luis Torrens

Another darLLing, Torrens had a few memorable moments in a Mariners uniform before continuing to be a plus bat with the Cubs and the Mets.

15. Omar Narváez

Fun fact: Narvy has the most home runs in a single Mariners season as a catcher by anyone not named Cal Raleigh or Mike Zunino. He hit 22 in 2019.

14. John Marzano

Marzano is here because he is a folk hero for fighting hated Yankee Paul O’Neill in 1996. At the time, it felt like he was taking swings at that bastard for the whole Pacific Northwest and it was awesome. He’ll always be remembered for it. Marzano sadly died in 2008 after falling down a flight of stairs.

13. Scott Bradley

Bradley was mostly a back-up to Dave Valle, but played 562 games and only struck out 104 times. He’s also here because I have one of his game-worn jerseys for some reason.

12. Jésus Sucré

Sweet Jesus was such a good defensive catcher and such a good receiver for Félix that we all collectively decided to not ever look at his hitting stats. Total sweetheart.

11. Mitch Garver

Garver aka GarvSauce aka GarvField may well return for the 2026 season, but either way, he’s been an occasionally competent hitter on the last two Mariners teams and helped them make the playoffs. He owns his male pattern baldness. He is also, by all accounts, a very nice guy who is more of an intellectual than most ballplayers.

10. Carlos “Chooch” Ruiz

Chooch is my favorite “catcher who had a great career and then spent his last playing days with the Mariners” guy. After winning a World Series with Philly and catching a playoff no-hitter, he spent 2017 being a clubhouse veteran and challenging Kyle Seager to a “name as many animals in Español as you can” game in the dugout. As Isabelle Minasian wrote in 2017, this was the top highlight of that season:

9. Austin Nola

In his brief tenure with the team, Nola was a shockingly good hitter and then was flipped with Austin Adams and Dan Altavilla to the Padres for one of the best trades in team history as they received Andrés Muñoz, Ty France, Taylor Tramell, and Luis Torrens.

8. Jésus Montero

Montero recently died in a motorcycle crash and had a complicated career with the Mariners, which I wrote about at length in October. I liked Jésus as a player and person in spite of his struggles and in particular because of how long he persevered in trying to overcome his struggles.

7. Tom Murphy

Tom Murphy and his crazy eyes. That’s it. What a wild man.

6. Mike Zunino

Other than Cal Raleigh, no Mariners catcher has hit more home runs than Big Mike Zunino. He was rushed as a prospect, struggled mightily at the plate for long stretches at a time, but man, when he connected with a pitch with his gigantically long and slow-ass swing? That fucking ball was GONE. Gone-gone. Real gone. Smacking the damn train in Houston gone. Almost leaving T-Mobile Park completely via left field gone. He struck out a lot. I’m not going to say here how many times, but it was a lot. He was also quite the defensive catcher and was one of the few at the forefront of the pitch-framing revolution and stole many strikes for Mariners pitchers, which is a skill that will now be less valuable as the ABS strike zone takes effect. But Zuni was a slugger and a source of several moments of pure Mariners joy during some tough seasons and I wish him the best.

5. John Jaso

John Jaso might be the coolest dude on this list. He showed up on the 2012 Mariners, posted 3.4 WAR(!), caught Félix’s Perfect Game, and then got traded in the offseason for……extremely washed Mike Morse. Thanks, Jack Z. Jaso got the last laugh as he grew dreadlocks like a pirate and played his last few seasons for the baseball Pirates before retiring and using his baseball earnings to buy a boat and just sail around the world for the foreseeable future. Literally Captain Ron. Literally Jack Sparrow. What a fucking legend.

4. Dave Valle

Dave rules, right? His return to the broadcast booth this past season was a surprisingly great addition to the team’s coverage, as he combined great baseball insider lived experience anecdotes with modern analytics. Val was, of course, the franchise’s first actually pretty good hitting catcher in team history, playing 846 games and slugging 72 home runs. He was first Mariners catcher I was truly conscious of and will always hold a special place in my fandom.

3. Kenji Johjima

Johjima could slug. He was a bit unfairly maligned by fans in his time with Mariners, coming over from NPB as a full-developed veteran player, but he smashed 48 home runs in 4 seasons and helped further solidify the Mariners as Japan’s favorite MLB team for many years. He even inspired an old LL meme, “Kenji has back spasms.” That’s it. That’s the joke. I dunno, you had to be there.

2. Dan Wilson

Would probably be number 2 on this list just for his playing career, but has further endeared himself to the fanbase as a Pretty Good Manager and one of 3 Mariners managers in team history to ever lead a team to the postseason. He’s the ultimate team guy and will never throw his players under the bus. He’ll also never give an interesting answer to a post-game question, and that’s okay. That’s just ol’ Danny Boy Wilson, coachin’ them players up and being the manager these players needed in order to truly be themselves.

1. Cal Raleigh

Obviously. The most obvious number one with a bullet. By the end of his Mariners career, he could easily end up in the top 5 career WAR of all Mariners players (currently at 22.9 fWAR). He hit the pinch-hit walk-off home run to end the playoff drought in 2022. No catcher has ever hit more home runs than Cal in a single season in MLB history, all 149 years of it. We are watching history. To many more, Cal!