Royals Be Nimble, Royals Be Fast, Royals Desperately Want Jac’s Stick

With the sixth choose within the 2024 draft, the Kansas Metropolis Royals took slugger-pitcher Jac Caglianone out of the College of Florida, and set him to the duty of being a full-time hitter. Caglianone’s quick 2024 debut was a middling efficiency at finest, as he hit .241/.302/.388 for the Excessive-A Quad Cities Rivers Bandits, and whereas he confirmed spectacular energy in spots within the Arizona Fall League, he hardly dominated the opposition.

However because the calendar flipped to 2025, Caglianone has been on a quest for vengeance towards pitchers with the ferocity of a Liam Neeson film protagonist. First, he went 9-for-18 in spring coaching with six extra-base hits, with the intention to give main leaguers honest warning that he was coming for them. After hitting .322/.394/.553 for Double-A Northwest Arkansas, a promotion to Triple-A hasn’t tamped down his homerlust, and he’s already smacked 5 dwelling runs for Omaha. The query of Caglianone’s promotion to the majors has quickly turn out to be “when” fairly than “if,” and it’s within the curiosity of the Royals to reply it with a three-letter phrase: “Now.”

On the again of their pitching, the 2024 Royals posted a profitable report and returned to the postseason for the primary time since their 2015 World Collection championship. Whereas the pitching was spectacular, the offense was an amazing deal much less so, and one in all Kansas Metropolis’s offseason challenges was to shore up the weak spots within the lineup in order that the majority of the runs didn’t have to come back solely from the triumvirate of Bobby Witt Jr., Salvador Perez, and Vinnie Pasquantino. Again earlier than the beginning of the season, I wrote about these points, and expressed dismay that the 2024 Royals featured three beginning positions that have been under alternative stage, essentially the most for any playoff workforce through the twenty first Century, and had finished subsequent to nothing to deal with their offensive woes for 2025.

Generally, these items have a method of working themselves out; in any case, there’s a motive why competent golf equipment don’t have that many incompetent positions, so it wouldn’t have been that stunning to see some optimistic regression from at the very least a kind of three spots. On this case, nonetheless, Royals place gamers are as soon as once more underwhelming — however this time they’re even worse than final 12 months. Shockingly, two of the gamers who held the lineup again in 2024, MJ Melendez and Hunter Renfroe, continued to do the very same factor after conserving their jobs this 12 months. Extra lately, although, the workforce is lastly exhibiting rather less reverence for the established order. Melendez was optioned to the minors on April 19 — he additionally hasn’t hit in Triple-A — and Renfroe was launched on Thursday. The lineup is now in even worse form than it regarded three months in the past; Pasquantino’s offense is down from final 12 months, and it seems that time has lastly tracked down Sal Perez. What was a three-man offense has turn out to be a duet of Witt and Maikel Garcia.

Total, Kansas Metropolis has scored the second-fewest runs within the American League, forward of solely the Texas Rangers, and its 82 wRC+ is equivalent to that of the White Sox, a workforce that I believe has sourced half of its roster from Upwork. The Royals have had a whole lot of awful offenses of their practically 60 years of existence, and this group appears to be like to be one of many worst.

Let’s be clear: The Royals are probably underperforming a bit on offense and will profit from some optimistic regression, however they shouldn’t expect a lot; the ZiPS projections assume that, assuming a mid-July call-up for Caglianone, they’ll end the 12 months with an 88 wRC+, not sufficient for them to fall off this ignominious listing.

If this have been a rebuilding workforce, properly, Kansas Metropolis would simply take its lumps and keep the course. However the Royals are usually not rebuilding, due to their elite pitching employees, which ranks second within the majors in ERA and sixth in WAR. At 30-27, the Royals are within the thick of the playoff hunt, and if the season ended at present, they might solely be half a sport out of the ultimate Wild Card spot. That Kansas Metropolis has such good pitching and continues to be solely shuffling round .500 makes its failures to improve its offense through the offseason all of the extra maddening. Proper now, the worth the Royals are getting from their pitching employees is just getting used to offset their lack of manufacturing on the plate. If their place gamers have been barely under common as an alternative of downright dreadful, they’d comfortably maintain a playoff spot proper now and appear like a real contender within the American League.

This can be a workforce that wants offensive reinforcements as quickly as attainable, throughout a really tough time of 12 months to take action. Till extra groups drop out of competition, most believable strikes are prone to be inside ones, and who higher than Caglianone? Neither John Rave (lately known as up) nor Cam Devanney, although hitting properly this 12 months, have the observe report or excessive upside to counsel they’d be large offensive additions. Many of the workforce’s different prime offensive prospects are catchers, and none of them are anyplace close to as superior offensively as Caglianone.

From a projection standpoint, Caglianone was the largest mover of the spring, going from a projected wRC+ of 72 to 96, largely as a result of he had so little skilled expertise to attract from earlier than. As one can anticipate, his 14 homers and .593 slugging proportion have solely excited ZiPS much more. We now have important skilled play, and within the excessive minors, so not solely has the projection continued to enhance, however the error bars have additionally tightened.

ZiPS now tasks Caglianone, if promoted to the majors, to hit .263/.335/.459, ok for a 120 OPS+ and a wRC+ of 118. Regardless of his efficiency this 12 months, he doesn’t mission to be an on the spot phenom; anticipating him to come back in and instantly flip into Yordan Alvarez might be unrealistic. However the Royals don’t want him to be Alvarez — although it will definitely be good — they simply want him to be higher than what they’ve proper now.

My colleagues Eric Longenhagen and James Fegan mentioned Caglianone in the Royals Prime Prospects listing, which was printed Thursday. As famous, he’s not somebody who’s going to convey a lot defensive worth to the desk. He’s fairly a free swinger who depends on his spectacular energy to bail him out when he connects with issues he most likely shouldn’t swing at, however that will likely be tougher to do persistently towards main league pitching. Except he improves his plate self-discipline in a single day, he’ll most likely want an adjustment interval when he first arrives.

These are issues, for certain, however I’d argue that also they are further causes to advertise him. If Caglianone requires time to regulate to the majors, then the earlier he begins that adjustment interval, the earlier he’ll come out on the opposite aspect of it. He’s not going to be taught to be extra affected person on the plate towards minor league pitchers contemplating he’s already destroying them along with his present method; I believe he has a much better likelihood of enhancing his plate self-discipline in an atmosphere the place pitchers are literally ok to problem him.

Calling up Caglianone to the majors comes with some threat, however not calling him up can also be dangerous. Leaving him in Triple-A would imply extra of the established order, and proper now the Royals are on observe miss the playoffs regardless of having a prime pitching employees and a megastar shortstop. Each championship workforce in baseball historical past has needed to win just a few cube rolls, and I can’t consider many higher gambles for Kansas Metropolis to take proper now than selling Cags.