A lot of different things can happen over the course of a baseball season, and so thinking probabilistically is one of the better ways of predicting what’s going to happen. For instance, it is very likely that Aaron Judge is going to be good next year. It is not very likely that, say, MJ Melendez is going to be good next year.
Run these probabilities across an entire team and you’ll find a fulcrum point where, on one side, the team makes the playoffs, and on the other side, they don’t. That point is different for every team; so much would have to go wrong for the Los Angeles Dodgers to not make the playoffs next year that the fulcrum might as well not be there at all, while the Colorado Rockies making the playoffs would be evidence of dark magic.
The 2026 Kansas City Royals are in the middle of those two extremes, and for them, the fulcrum point rests on the performance of a pair of 22-year-olds: Jac Caglianone and Carter Jensen.
Kansas City is largely running it back, and because of how the team is structured, there’s not a lot of entropy throughout most of the roster. Bobby Witt Jr. will be good. Witt’s core lieutenants (Maikel Garcia and Vinnie Pasquantino) will be good. The rotation will be good. The bullpen will be fine. There’s enough pitching depth to provide some shelter for the ever-present storm of Arm Injuries.
But that team only won 82 games. A lack of entropy also means a lack of upside. And with the Royals probably out of the running for impact free agents and having to resort to trading big league talent for hitters, limited help is coming from outside. The 2026 Royals will probably be good, but it’s hard to see how the same players can propel the team to the 85 or more wins it’ll probably take to make it to the playoffs.
That’s why Caglianone and Jensen are so important. They have what so few other players on the team have: big potential.
Of course, that potential comes with considerable risk, and there is a different sort of risk for both. Caglianone was frankly one of the worst players in Major League Baseball last year, and he was that bad for long enough that you wonder if he’ll ever be able to be a fraction of the hitter he was in the Minors. Jensen, on the other hand, was great in a short stint. But there’s almost no way he’ll replicate his .300/.391/.550 September triple slash over a full year. How far will his offensive output slip?
Still, there’s no denying the raw offensive talent of both players. Both have 30-home run upside and the ability to take walks. And with longer to prep for playing right field, Caglianone’s defense should also improve.
If Caglianone and Jensen perform well, the Royals’ offense will be in an excellent spot. If only one does well, that severely cuts down on the margin for error elsewhere. And if both flounder, you can probably say goodbye to Kansas City’s playoff odds.
It’s been a blast watching the pitching be so good for the last two years. It’s been a blast watching the best shortstop in baseball play for the Royals. Kansas City has some of the hard parts nailed down. They just need a couple more breaks, and the two youngsters are the ones who need to do the breaking.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.royalsreview.com ’
