{"id":2015522,"date":"2025-09-12T00:31:19","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T00:31:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2015522"},"modified":"2025-09-12T00:31:19","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T00:31:19","slug":"kansas-city-royals-1b-jac-caglianone-officially-commits-to-italy-for-2026-wbc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/kansas-city-royals-1b-jac-caglianone-officially-commits-to-italy-for-2026-wbc\/","title":{"rendered":"Kansas City Royals 1B Jac Caglianone Officially Commits to Italy for 2026 WBC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n          <i class=\"fa-sharp fa-light fa-hourglass-clock\"\/>\u00a0 <small><em>About 2 minutes reading time.<\/em><\/small><br \/>\n          <span class=\"datetime\"><i class=\"fa-sharp fa-light fa-user-circle\"\/>\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/worldbaseball.com\/author\/jeff-duda\/\" title=\"Posts by Jeff Duda - World Baseball Network\">Jeff Duda &#8211; World Baseball Network<\/a>\u00a0 | \u00a0<i class=\"fa-sharp fa-light fa-clock\"\/>\u00a0 Sep 11th, 2025 10:28am EDT<\/span><\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<figure class=\"figure\">\n                      <\/figure>\n<p>Kansas City Royals rookie Jac Caglianone has officially committed to represent Italy in the 2026 World Baseball Classic, joining teammate Vinnie Pasquantino as one of the first confirmed Major League Baseball players on the squad.<\/p>\n<p>In a recent interview with former MLB player Carlos Baerga, Caglianone confirmed his decision, saying, \u201cI\u2019m gonna play with Italy because Puerto Rico reached out late. Only about a couple months ago. I\u2019ve been talking to Italy for years about it. So, I\u2019ve already committed.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"jeg_video_container jeg_video_content\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Entrevista a Jac Caglianone boricua-italiano de los Kansas City Royals Sept 2025\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dR4smT3SspA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>Caglianone, the Royals\u2019 first-round pick (sixth overall) in the 2024 MLB Draft, was previously a two-way standout at the University of Florida, but has focused exclusively on hitting in his professional career.<\/p>\n<p>He began the 2025 season in Double-A, where he hit an impressive .322\/.394\/.553 with nine home runs in 38 games, earning a promotion to Triple-A. His hot bat continued, with six home runs in just 12 games, leading to a swift call-up to Kansas City.<\/p>\n<p>However, the transition to MLB has proven difficult. After missing time in July due to injury, Caglianone is currently slashing .150\/.224\/.269 with five home runs and 12 RBIs \u2014 a disappointing start for with the difficult adjustment facing MLB pitching.<\/p>\n<p>Despite his struggles, Caglianone is expected to be a key piece of Italy\u2019s lineup in the WBC, likely serving as their starting designated hitter and batting in the middle of the order.<\/p>\n<p>Italy will play in Pool B at 2026 WBC\u00a0 at Daikin Park in Houston, Texas, facing Brazil on March 7, Great Britain on March 8, the United States on March 10, and Mexico on March 11 in what could be a win-or-g0-home matchup.<\/p>\n<p>Italy will need strong performances from their MLB talent \u2014 especially Caglianone \u2014 if they hope to advance to the quarterfinals in what looks to be a highly competitive group.<\/p>\n<p><em>Photo: Kansas City Royals\u2019 Jac Caglianone during batting practice before a baseball game against the San Diego Padres, Friday, June 20, 2025, in San Diego. (AP Photo\/Tony Ding)<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"aioseo-author-bio-compact\">\n<div class=\"aioseo-author-bio-compact-left\">\n\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aioseo-author-bio-compact-image lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/912a6386cac2a1290b08baa33f1cac8cbc6561ea35bcd7cbe9182838bbc0334c?s=300&amp;d=mm&amp;r=g\" alt=\"author avatar\"\/>\n\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source worldbaseball.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 About 2 minutes reading time. \u00a0Jeff Duda &#8211; World Baseball Network\u00a0 | \u00a0\u00a0 Sep 11th, 2025 10:28am EDT Kansas City Royals rookie Jac Caglianone has officially committed to represent Italy in the 2026 World Baseball Classic, joining teammate Vinnie Pasquantino as one of the first confirmed Major League Baseball players on the squad. In [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2015523,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2015522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Kansas-City-Royals-1B-Jac-Caglianone-Officially-Commits-to-Italy.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2015522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2015522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2015522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2015523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2015522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2015522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2015522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}