When the Kansas City Royals drafted Jac Caglianone with the sixth overall pick in 2024, they knew they had a future star worth the wait. Yes, he has some strikeout issues, and that was true back then, but his power potential was off the charts. Boy, are they enjoying the latter now.
After a rough MLB showing last year and a rather quiet first couple of months in 2026, Caglianone is breaking out and starting to realize his vast power potential right before our eyes.
The lefty slugger is slashing a robust .277/.349/.498 with 14 home runs, a 132 wRC+, and 1.8 fWAR in 74 games and 281 plate appearances before Wednesday’s games. Here is his performance in each month:
March/April: .250/.333/.398, .731 OPS, 103 wRC+
May: .222/.271/.367, .638 OPS+, 72 wRC+
June: .373/.453/.773, 1.227 OPS, 232 wRC+
He was merely league-average in the first month and an offensive liability in May. The Royals, however, were patient with him throughout his struggles and are now reaping the benefits with a historic June.
Caglianone has nine home runs in June alone, and six of them have come in his last seven games. Over that span, he is slugging .900, and that number is still impressive, .810 over his last 15 games.
Is Caglianone ready to enter the upper echelon of MLB sluggers at this point? There will be some bumps in the road, particularly in the strikeout and batting average departments, but the short answer to that question is yes.
His .387 expected wOBA (xwOBA) ranks in the 95th percentile of MLB hitters. His rolling xwOBA over his last 100 plate appearances is even more impressive. Hint: it’s flirting with .500:
Caglianone hits the ball so hard and so frequently that only five percent of the hitters in the league have a better xwOBA than him, despite his 13th percentile 29.2% strikeout rate.
Basically, the slugger has some issues making consistent contact, but when he does, incredible things happen, hence his 98th percentile xwOBAcon (expected wOBA on contact).
You know you are dealing with a unique physical specimen when, in addition to the jaw-dropping batted ball data, he is in the 90th percentile in Arm Value and leads the league in Arm Strength, at 98.3 mph.
Some talent evaluators had Caglianone as one of the most impressive offensive talents in the 2024 MLB Draft, even ahead of first overall pick Travis Bazzana. The two exciting rookies have been impressive, but the Royals are obviously happy with the former Florida Gator.
It took a while, but Caglianone is now a unique offensive specimen who has no issues hitting lefties (125 wRC+) and righties (135 wRC+). He can be deployed as a middle-of-the-order masher no matter the pitcher’s hand, the day, the team, or any other circumstances. Just look at these two missiles against Shane McClanahan on Tuesday:
It’s scary to think that Caglianone is just starting to scratch his ceiling. Royals fans sure are in for a lot of fun in the upcoming seasons, watching their homegrown sluggers hit tape-measure home runs for the remaining part of the decade at the very least.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source royalskeep.com ’
