Royals No. 1 prospect Caglianone rips two more homers for four in three games

Jac Caglianone looks like he’s figuring out this Double-A thing and finding his groove at the plate. That's bad news for Texas League hurlers – and great news for the Royals’ top prospect.

Caglianone (MLB No. 18) belted two more homers in Northwest Arkansas’ 5-4 win over Wichita on Tuesday. The first multi-homer game of Caglianone's career was also his third straight game with at least one homer -- he's now socked four homers in his past three games and achieved multi-hit games in five of his last seven contests.

Facing Wind Surge righty Darren Bowen in Tuesday's third inning, Caglianone lined a solo homer over the left-field wall at Arvest Ballpark. He added a three-run opposite-field homer in the seventh, and also singled to finish with three hits and four RBIs on the afternoon.

Caglianone belted 68 homers as a two-way player over his final two seasons at the University of Florida before the Royals selected him sixth overall as a hitter in the 2024 Draft. It took a little while for that power to translate into pro ball, with Caglianone homering only twice in his first 29 games at High-A Quad Cities last summer in his debut. He then went deep five times in 21 games in the Arizona Fall League, flashing the power that made him one of the most feared sluggers in college baseball history.

• Subscribe to the MLB Pipeline Newsletter

Now that power is showing up in droves. Caglianone launched a two-run homer onto the roof of a nearby building off Cardinals No. 11 prospect Tekoah Roby on Saturday, followed it up with a solo shot on Sunday and added the two opposite-field blasts on Tuesday. Already this season, he's also turned heads with a 120.9 mph single, two hits off future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw during the southpaw's rehab assignment, and a string of tape-measure homers.

It's the kind of performance that has the Royals thinking about what's next for Caglianone, and they've started sprinkling in opportunities in right field with an eye toward potentially getting him to Kansas City faster, perhaps as quickly as this year.

Ultimately, it'll be the bat that drives those decisions, and so far, Caglianone is swinging exactly like the Royals hoped he would in his first stint at Double-A. The Royals have begun to discuss what a promotion to Triple-A would look like for Caglianone, but they won’t make that timetable public. And general manager J.J. Picollo reiterated again on Monday in Kansas City that the organization “loves” what Caglianone is doing in Double-A so far – they just want him to keep doing it.

“We’re not in any rush to get him to Triple-A,” Picollo said. “Not saying it hasn’t been discussed. It’s just – there’s no timetable on it. We like what he’s doing. We’re happy with what he’s doing. We’re trying to allow him to develop properly as a hitter. When this offense settles in, that might be the proper time for him to come up."

The Royals have hinted before that the ideal time for Caglianone to reach the big leagues is when the team is playing winning baseball and he doesn’t have the weight of turning an entire offense around by himself. Kansas City has won 12 of its last 14 games entering Tuesday, with the offense showing signs of improvement after a tough first month.

Still, the Royals won’t be rushing Caglianone, who is now hitting .330 with eight homers, 31 RBIs, and a 1.012 OPS through his first 28 games in Double-A, where his eight dingers rank second in the Texas League.

Because when the Royals do promote Caglianone, they want to be sure he’s ready to succeed – and help Kansas City win.

“From a batted ball perspective, there are things – you want guys to make it a little bit tighter,” Picollo said. “Hard-hit, which obviously isn’t a problem for him, but you get to chase and swing and miss, they’re going to be factors. In-zone swing and miss is a factor. … It’s trying to look at all that data, understanding, ‘OK, what can give a little bit, what’s going to survive up here?’”

With the Royals keeping an eye on the underlying metrics, there have been positive signs with the factors Picollo is talking about even in this past week of performance.

The next level can’t be far off, especially at the rate Caglianone is hitting.

“There are a lot of different factors that go into trying to figure out when a guy’s ready, and even at that point, they might not be ready,” Picollo said. “But we’re going to do our best to make sure he is.”