It was the Jac-est of times, it was the Caglianonest of times.
What did we expect to happen?
The Royals lucked—yes, lucked—into drafting Jac Caglianone with the sixth overall pick in the 2024 MLB Draft.
He’d been a star for the Florida Gators, and in a draft with no clear top pick, there was no noise that he could go first. He didn’t, and lasted past the top five, where the Royals gladly selected him.
The plan wasn’t to call him up in 2025. That’s rarely the plan for MLB teams. It’s different from other American professional sports, where first-round (and sometimes even later-round) picks are supposed to contribute immediately. Not so in baseball, where the draftee takes his time working his way through the minor league system before, hopefully in a few years, makes his debut and can contribute.
The plan changed—obviously, because on June 3rd in St. Louis, after only 21 games in the Arizona Fall League, another 29 games with Quad Cities, then 38 in Northwest Arkansas before a smattering in Omaha, Jac Caglianone made his Major League debut.
In a sign of things to come, he went 0-for-5.
To Caglianone’s credit, he helped force the Royals’ hand in promoting him. In that limited time in the minors, he slugged his way into consideration for the Major League team. It helped, of course, that the Major League team itself wasn’t slugging. Even though Cags went 0-for-5 on June 3rd, the offense came alive that night, a 10-7 win against the Cardinals.
Also giving fans hope: several of those outs during his debut were absolutely smoked, but hit right at a fielder. And while he’d lay waste to some pitches, it didn’t happen often enough.
Yet, Cags wasn’t a finished product. Not by any means. A natural first-baseman, that spot was taken in Kansas City. He moved to the outfield, where he performed…fine. But one look at him in the field last year and a fan could, this wasn’t a natural outfielder.
At the plate, he still struck out a lot in the minors. Yes, when with the Naturals and StormChasers, he posted on-base percentages hovering near .400, but he also struck out about twice as often as he walked. That’s against minor-league pitching. Going back farther, to his time in Quad Cities and the AFL, his OBP was at or barely above .300 while he struck out more and walked less.
But that power…that power got him promoted, and promoted, until he landed in Kansas City.
And struggled for the rest of the year.
There’s no way to sugarcoat that. Look at his final slashline. It’s an ugly little beast: .157/.237/.295 for an OPS+ of 49, which is, of course, 51% below league average. His bWAR came in at -1.3 and his fWAR at -1.6. Only seven other players (including Hunter Renfroe, I’ll note) posted a worse bWAR in 2025. And that’s out of 763 players.
If you look at Cags’ year before he reached the Majors, and during his rebab stint in Omaha, yeah, it’s pretty good, that’s a solid-looking prospect whose future I’m excited about if he can iron out a few things and find a spot in the field.
Unfortunately, the shine’s off him due his poor performance. Not that it was poor, but that is was that poor.
The Royals did Cags no favors by calling him up when they did and keeping him up outside of rehabbing. His season’s grade is as much an indictment on them as it is Cags himself.
Season Grade: D
