What to expect from Royals prospect Caglianone in the big leagues

As a team, the Royals rank last in the Majors with 34 homers. No other club has hit fewer than 43. If only Kansas City had one of the most powerful bats waiting in the wings in the Minors…

Actually, he's waiting no more.

The Royals called up Jac Caglianone, baseball's No. 10 overall prospect, to the Majors for the first time on Monday morning. He's batting sixth as Kansas City's DH in the 7:45 p.m. ET/6:45 CT game against the Cardinals at Busch Stadium.

The 2024 sixth overall pick has produced a .322/.389/.593 slash line over 50 games between Double-A Northwest Arkansas and Triple-A Omaha to begin his first full season. His 15 homers are tied for third among all Minor Leaguers, while his 118 total bases are tied for fifth and 64 hits place seventh.

It's that 70-grade power that has driven so much of Caglianone’s performance and prospect stock dating back to his days at Florida, where he hit 68 homers over his sophomore and junior seasons. The left-handed slugger has tremendous strength in his 6-foot-5, 250-pound frame, and he uses every inch of that to produce top-of-the-scale exit velocities.

His opposite-field single on April 10 for Northwest Arkansas registered an EV of 120.9 mph, harder than any ball hit by a Royals player during the Statcast era (since 2015). Only Oneil Cruz (122.9 mph) has a max exit velocity higher in the Majors this season.

Entering Sunday, Caglianone had an average Triple-A exit velocity of 94.9 mph and a hard-hit rate (i.e., percentage of batted-ball events above 95 mph) of 59.5 percent. For context, top overall prospect Roman Anthony had an average Triple-A EV of 95.2 and a hard-hit rate of 59.4, albeit over a much larger sample. Caglianone's 110.7 mph 90th-percentile exit velocity was second-highest among Triple-A batters with at least 50 plate appearances entering Sunday.

In other words, this upper-echelon raw pop isn’t just a flash in the pan. It’s something the former Gator gets to often, to all fields.

Looking for distance? Try this. Even though he only debuted for Omaha on May 20, Caglianone is responsible for three of the four longest homers hit by Storm Chasers this season: 459 feet, 442 feet and 431 feet.

The big questions remain, as they were heading into the 2024 Draft, around Caglianone's overall approach at the dish.

Caglianone ran a 44 percent chase rate as a sophomore in Gainesville, lowered that to 39 percent as a junior and dropped it again to 35 percent between the Texas and Pacific Coast Leagues this spring, all per Synergy. That’s trending in the right direction, but considering the MLB average chase rate in 2025 is 27.9 percent, that’s still rough before Caglianone even swings a bat in The Show. Major Leaguers should be expected to pitch outside the zone and test the new Royals slugger’s willingness to expand it against the best-quality pitching he’s seen. He’s also shown high whiff rates against changeups (51 percent) and curveballs (50 percent), and pitchers with decent offerings of either type could feed him a steady diet of both.

Then again, Caglianone hits the ball with such ferocity no matter where it’s pitched that he can carry a subpar approach and lower walk rate and still be an above-average hitter over the long term in the Majors.

Caglianone's call also coincides with a deeper focus in right field, where he made four of his last five starts for Omaha. Typically a first baseman, he debuted in right on April 24 and started to see more time on the grass as the season progressed.

The Royals designated struggling veteran right fielder Hunter Renfroe on May 23 and released him five days later. They've used John Rave, Mark Canha and Drew Waters in that spot since Renfroe’s initial move, but all lack Caglianone’s upside and ceiling.

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Kansas City drafted Caglianone as a potential two-way player but moved him exclusively to position-player status out of the belief his bat could move quickest to the Majors. His defensive work could still be rough around the edges as he possesses below-average speed and is still learning the nuances of playing a professional outfield. But the arm strength that threatened triple digits in school will be even more of a weapon in right than it would otherwise be at first base.

The organization was certainly right about that timeline. With the focus on the bat, Caglianone becomes just the fourth member of the 2024 Draft to reach the Majors, behind Astros outfielder Cam Smith, A’s first baseman Nick Kurtz and Angels right-hander Ryan Johnson.

Ready the fountains.