Athletics Shea Langeliers Is The Best Catcher In Baseball

Coming into the 2026 MLB season, Athletics Shea Langeliers was already a known commodity to the majority of baseball fans. He was ranked the seventh-best catcher in the league according to Buster Olney’s season preview. Despite the familiarity and modest amount of respect for Langeliers’ talent, he was still not in the conversation for best catcher in baseball. A little over a month into the season, and this has changed.

The A’s backstop is currently sporting a .336 average to go along with 45 hits, 10 home runs, and 18 RBI. He is tied for the most hits in baseball and is tied for the fourth-best batting average as well. His 10 homers are also the most for any catcher.

As if this torrid start wasn’t enough to terrify opposing pitchers, the 28-year-old became a first-time father this past Sunday. With newly anointed dad strength for Langeliers to unleash, fans can expect him to maintain this level of play and continue staking his claim to the title of best catcher in baseball.

Langeliers Vs. Raleigh

When it comes to something as subjective as ranking players, in any sport, there will always be competition and disagreements. After a record-setting 2025 campaign, Cal Raleigh was undoubtedly the consensus pick for the league’s best catcher. His unprecedented 60 home runs and 125 RBI as a primary catcher led the Mariners to an ALCS appearance and earned him a second-place finish in the American League MVP race. While getting the bridesmaid and not the bride treatment in both those respects surely did not sit well with Raleigh, it was a historic season.

Despite all the momentum from the previous year, 2026 has been nowhere near as kind to the man known as “Big Dumper”. His struggles began when playing for Team USA in the World Baseball Classic, where he went hitless over three games and 14 plate appearances. Unfortunately for Raleigh and the Seattle Mariners, this has carried into the regular season, and he is only batting .186 with 7 home runs and 18 RBI to this point. It is only early May, but his slow start has left the door ajar for others to join the best catcher conversation.

The Major League Baseball season is 162 games for a reason, and success is never easy to maintain. This is especially true when it comes to catchers because of the toll the position takes on their bodies. The Mariners were smart with Raleigh last season in the way that they balanced his playing time at catcher and designated hitter to keep his legs fresh and his bat in the lineup as much as possible. He played in 121 games at catcher and 38 games at DH, which combined for an impressive 159 games played.

The A’s seem to be taking a similar approach with Langeliers this season. Last year, the former Baylor Bear only DH’d in 16 games, and has already done so in eight games, while catching the other 26. Aside from being out on paternity leave, his bat is too potent to be out of the lineup. Langeliers has a quietly confident, workmanlike approach both behind and at the plate that endears him to his teammates, coaches, and fans. He is not interested in taking days off. He is, however, interested in mashing baseballs into oblivion and winning games.

Clearly, from an offensive perspective, Langeliers leaves little to be desired. He hits for average and power and is even one of the fastest catchers in the league. The catcher’s numbers have improved each year, and he’s demonstrated the ability to adapt to all the different ways pitchers attack him.

On the defensive side, don’t be sucked into a never-ending rabbit hole of analytics that paints Langeliers as completely incompetent behind the plate. Analytics are incredibly useful in a variety of ways, but it can be like it’s like reading hieroglyphics, and most people don’t actually know what they mean. While admittedly a bat-first catcher, the former Atlanta Braves first-round pick has a sniper rifle for a right arm, is an excellent blocker, and has become a much more refined at framing the baseball. With the addition of the ABS System this season, while still valuable, a catcher’s ability to frame is also not as vital as it once was because there is no fooling the eye in the sky.

The point is that even though analytics have changed the game primarily for the better, they are not always fully reliable, and people still need to trust what their eyes tell them. His nickname may be “Shea Bangeliers” because of the way he swings the bat, but his defense is more than passable at catcher. Anyone who says otherwise should close their spreadsheet, actually watch a baseball game, and then reevaluate. It is safe to assume that every manager would sacrifice a little bit defensively if it meant their backstop was going to be any semblance of the hitter Langeliers is.

Athletics Shea Langeliers: Dark Horse MVP Candidate

As already stated, it is early, but that doesn’t mean it’s not fun to make predictions and try to look like a genius come October. Certain factors need to be considered when predicting MVP winners. These awards are voted on by humans (for now) and are not immune to biases or storylines that are easy to root for.

Imagine Langeliers continues demolishing every baseball thrown in his general direction for the remainder of the season, and he leads the Athletics to their first playoff berth since 2020. An unassuming, breakout star being the main reason a team without a city in its name and banished to play in a minor league ballpark makes the playoffs sounds like a Hollywood script. Obviously, a lot would have to go right for a scenario like that to play out, but that is an underdog storyline that would captivate the baseball world.

MVP voter fatigue is a real thing, and voters and fans will look for any reason to give the award to someone other than Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani. Langeliers is a ridiculously easy player to pull for because of the way he carries himself on and off the field. If he can keep up this level of play and get more national media attention on his game, all who follow baseball will get to see what A’s fans are treated to regularly.

Langeliers is the game’s best catcher and an MVP-caliber player. The only question is when the rest of the league and those who cover it are going to realize it.