The Kansas City Royals have a lot to be excited about in 2026, as they look to get back to playing October baseball after a disappointing 2025 season.
It will be another year that their young offensive core of Bobby Witt Jr., Maikel Garcia and Vinnie Pasquantino gets closer to their primes. Their pitching staff is set to be led by a healthy ace in Cole Ragans and anchored by the 2025 MLB saves leader in Carlos Estévez and they have a few young and upcoming names that they’re hoping officially breakout in 2026.
One of those names is Jac Caglinaone, who after a very disappointing 2025 rookie campaign, will hope to look more like the power-heavy prospect that Royals fans had hoped for when he was called up last June.
And it appears the Royals unsurprisingly have the exact same hopes for their former top prospect and it became crystal clear after they released their 2026 promotional schedule on Friday.
On May 4, when Kansas City hosts their AL Central rivals in the Cleveland Guardians, the team will be having their first bobblehead game of the year, the Caglianone Blazin’ Bat Bobblehead giveaway.
Royals’ Caglianone-based giveaway shows their hopes are high for a breakout from the youngster
Not every player gets their own bobblehead night. It’s usually reserved for fan-favorite top-talents. Among the other names with similar giveaways this season are Bobby Witt Jr., Salvador Perez, Maikel Garcia and the Pasquatch (inspired by Vinnie Pasquantino of course).
So, it’s no small feat for Caglianone to have captured the hearts of fans already and placed himself into this unique marketing category.
But as touched upon already, Caglianone’s bat wasn’t exactly blazin’ in 2025. In fact, with a .157/.237/.295 slash line and 46 wRC+, he looked rather lost at the dish in his rookie season.
However, it was the immense success he saw in the minor leagues, tearing his way through Double-A Northwest Arkansas and Triple-A Omaha, that made him such a fan favorite.
Through that, he’s also grabbed the attention of the media and projection systems, drawing comparisons to 2025 All-Stars and faring well in FanGraphs’ 2026 Steamer projections.
And the team already seems to have apparent plans for protecting him this season as he works to come into his own that the major league level, announcing at the beginning of the offseason that they were searching for a right-handed platoon partner for him in right field and subsequently trading for Isaac Collins and signing veteran Lane Thomas.
The Royals’ decision to move many of their outfield walls in by around 10 feet this season, will surely help power-happy hitters like Caglianone moving forward as well.
Time will tell whether or not Caglianone will be able to grow into his immense potential in the upcoming season, but it’s small things like promotional bobblehead nights that show his team seems to be bought in on doing what it takes to make it happen.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source kingsofkauffman.com ’
