Better know a draft prospect: Jac Caglianone

The Florida two-way player has perhaps the best power in the class.

With the MLB draft just days away, let’s continue evaluating some prospects that the Royals may consider drafting with the sixth overall pick. Following my write up of Chase Burns, there is just one of the presumptive top eight college prospects that we have yet to evaluate. Today, we will cover the player with perhaps the highest ceiling in this draft: Florida’s Jac Caglianone.

Caglianone (pronounced CAH-glee-own) hails from Tampa, Florida, where he played prep baseball at Plant High School. He excelled on the field as a two-way player, earning two-time All-State honors. He also excelled in the classroom as a member of the Beta Honor Society and the National Honor Society. Caglianone had first-round potential as a senior, but he underwent Tommy John surgery before the draft. That scared teams enough that he went undrafted, sending him to Gainesville that autumn.

As a freshman recovering from UCL surgery, Caglianone was not expected to play a big role for the Gators in 2022. He spent most of that spring riding the bench, finally cracking the lineup with a pinch-hit appearance on April 23. He made his first start the next day and collected his first collegiate hit when he cracked a fourth-inning homer. Caglianone would hold down the DH spot for the remainder of the season, starting the rest of Florida’s games at that position.

Florida put together a solid season and entered the NCAA Tournament as the #13 overall seed. They advanced to the Regional final but were knocked out by the eventual national runners-up Oklahoma Sooners in the deciding game. Caglianone went 6-for-21 with a double and two homers in the Tournament. He finished his freshmen season hitting .289/.339/.548 with six doubles and seven homers in 115 plate appearances.

Fully healthy and ready to go in 2023, Caglianone began the season as Florida’s primary first baseman and Sunday starting pitcher. He grabbed the attention of the college baseball world in the third weekend of the season when the Gators played a rivalry series against Miami. Caglianone hit two home runs on Saturday before striking out eight across six innings of one-run ball on Sunday. Once SEC play began, he struggled with command on the mound but remained a force in the batter’s box.

Led by Caglianone and future fourth overall pick Wyatt Langford, Florida entered the NCAA Tournament as the #2 national seed. They dropped their second game against Texas Tech, but then rattled off eight straight tournament wins to advance to the College World Series Finals. In a must-win game two, Caglianone went yard twice, setting the BBCOR-era home run record with 33 long balls. He then started the decisive game three but struggled, allowing six runs in 1.1 innings as LSU won the national championship. Caglianone went 11-for-53 with a double and five home runs in tournament play, while allowing seven runs in 11.2 innings on the mound. Overall, he finished the season hitting .323/.389/.738 in 319 plate appearances and pitching to a 4.34 ERA in 74.2 innings. Caglianone was a unanimous first-team All-American but somehow lost out on the John Olerud Two-Way Player of the Year award to Clemson’s Caden Grice.

Expectations were sky-high for Caglianone and the Gators entering 2024, with D1Baseball ranking them second in the nation and ranking Caglianone as the best draft prospect. On the mound, he started the season strong, including seven innings with only one earned run allowed against the defending champions in late March. However, his command issues persisted and his effectiveness waned down the stretch. Offensively, he was as advertised, starting the season on a 13-game hitting streak and going 6-for-14 in the first series of conference play. In early April, he tied an NCAA record with a home run in nine straight games. In the next game after the streak ended, he went yard twice.

Florida had an extremely disappointing regular season, barely sneaking into the NCAA Tournament as the #3 seed in the Stillwater Regional. That’s when the Gators caught fire, eliminating the hosts before traveling to Clemson and sweeping the Tigers to advance to Omaha. They went 2-2 there, reaching the semifinals before falling to Texas A&M. Caglianone was stellar in the postseason, going 16-for-36 with six homers, three doubles, and 17(!) walks. He made three starts on the mound, allowing nine runs in 11.2 innings. Overall, Caglianone hit .419/.544/.875 with 35 homers while pitching to a 4.76 ERA in 73.2 innings. He was once again a consensus first-team All-American and this year received the John Olerud award he was robbed of in 2023.

Caglianone has remained near the top of draft boards ever since he broke out in 2023:

MLB Pipeline: 3

Prospects Live: 3

Perfect Game: 3

Future Stars Series: 3

Baseball America ($): 5

Keith Law ($): 8

Kiley McDaniel ($): 4

Let’s get this out of the way immediately: Caglianone’s days on the mound are likely over. While it’s difficult to totally give up on a guy with an upper-90s fastball and promising changeup from the left side, there are several problems with his operation. It’s an ugly delivery that starts with a long and inconsistent arm action before striding way towards the first base side and throwing across his body. There are a lot of moving parts and he struggles to repeat his mechanics, which helps explain how he had a 15.4% walk rate in college.

He also didn’t tend to hold his stuff deep into games and he really wore down late in the season. In his last start of ‘24, his fastball was sitting in the upper-80s. While there’s tons of potential for Caglianone on the mound, it doesn’t make sense for most teams to develop him there given the tools he has on offense which will require less polish. Pitching could serve as a good fallback plan should his offensive development stall.

Speaking of, let’s talk hitting. Caglianone did an awful lot of that at school, hitting 30+ homers in both of his seasons as a starter. At 6’5”, 250, he’s a hulking presence in the box, which he occupies nearly every inch of with his slightly-open, wide-based stance. Starting with his hands up high by his head, he loads deep and takes a short stride with his front foot scarcely leaving the turf. Then he uncoils with vicious bat speed, unloading a top-hand dominant swing geared to pull the ball in the air.

Perhaps nobody in this draft has more raw power than Caglianone. He’s not just a slugger however, showing solid barrel control as well with the ability to hit pitches in all parts of the strike zone. His one hole in college has been hard fastballs at the top of the zone, which more pitchers will exploit in pro ball if he cannot patch that up. There are the makings of a plus hit tool here.

The biggest area of development for Caglianone will be in his approach. His ability to make contact on pitches in the zone helped keep the strikeouts in check, with a 14% K-rate in college and an 8.2% mark in ‘24. However, Caglianone really likes to swing, whether or not the pitch is in the zone. That was a clear issue in ‘23 and on the surface, it appears he improved in ‘24. After walking just 5.3% of the time as a sophomore, he bumped that to 18.4% this season.

That belies his actual swing-take metrics, which didn’t change much. In reality, Caglianone’s improved walk rate was really a case of teams giving him the Bonds treatment — 31 of his 58 walks this season were intentional. If we strike those plate appearances from the record, his walk rate this season was just 9.5%. When you have 80-grade power, I understand the desire to swing at everything, but Caglianone will need to improve his pitch recognition and swing decisions to hit in pro ball.

With his fringe-average speed, Caglianone is probably a first baseman defensively, even with his arm. That said, he has shown good skills around the bag, including a knack for running down balls in foul territory, and he could be plus there.

The goal for Caglianone is simple, if not easy: improve the approach. With his power and in-box athleticism, the ceiling here is immense even with a first base-only profile. Should that fail, maybe he could turn into a left-handed reliever, but the dream is a power-hitting first baseman that will contend for the home run title every season.