Royals are quick, Royals are quick, Royals are desperate for Jack’s stick

In the sixth overall pick in the 2024 draft, the Kansas City Royals brought Slugger-Pitcher Jac Caglianone out of the University of Florida and brought him to the task of becoming a full-time batsman. Caglianone’s 2024 debut was at its best midfield performance as he reached .241/.302/.388 in the high A Quad Cities Rivers Bandits, and despite his impressive strength in the Arizona Fall League position, he has hardly dominated the opposition.

But since the calendar turned to 2025, Caglianone has been pursuing the Liam Neeson film’s main character’s revenge against the pitcher. First, he made 18 shots with six extra shots in spring practice to give the majors fair warning that he was coming for them. The promotion to Triple-A has not suppressed his home runs after hitting Double-A Northwest Arkansas, which he has hit five home runs for Omaha. The question of Caglianone’s promotion to the Grand Slam has quickly become “when” rather than “if”, which is in the interests of the royal family, answering in a three-letter word: “Now.”

Behind their pitching, the 2024 Royals returned to the playoffs for the first time since the 2015 World Series championship. While the pitching is impressive, there are much fewer attacks, and one of Kansas City’s offseason challenges is putting weaknesses in the lineup into the roster so that most of the runs don’t have to come from Bobby Witt, Salvador Perez and Vinnie Pasquantino’s Bobby Witt Jr. I wrote about these issues long before the season started and was frustrated that the three starting positions of the Royals in 2024 were below the alternative level, the most of any postseason team in the 21st century and did little to solve their 2025 offensive disaster.

Sometimes, there is a solution to these things. After all, there is a reason clubs don’t have that many capable positions, so it’s not surprising to see a positive return in at least one of these three positions. However, in this case, the Royals’ post players are once again incredible – but this time they are worse than last year. Shockingly, two players who held the roster in 2024, MJ Melendez and Hunter Renfroe continue to do the same thing after retaining their jobs this year. However, recently, the team has finally reduced its respect for the status quo. Melendez was selected as a minor on April 19 – he also failed to hit in Triple-A – Renfroe was released Thursday. The current lineup looks worse than it looked three months ago. Pasquantino’s offense has dropped compared to last year, and it seems time has finally tracked down Sal Perez. The three-man offense has become a duet between Witt and Maikel Garcia.

Overall, Kansas City finished second in the American League, leading just above the Texas Rangers, with its 82 WRC+ the same as the White Sox team, which I think has half the roster from Upwork. Royals have committed many bad crimes in their nearly 60 years of existence, and this group seems to be one of the worst.

Let’s be clear: the royals may have some shortcomings in the offense and should benefit from some positive return, but they shouldn’t expect too much. Zips’ predictions suggest that assuming mid-July for Caglianone, they will end the year with 88 WRC+, which is not enough to get them off this mean list.

If it was a reconstruction team, then Kansas City would just lift it up and keep the course. However, the royals were not rebuilt due to their elite pitchers, which ranked sixth in the Grand Slam and War of the Times. The Royals are in the playoff hunting event with a 30-27 record and if the season ends, they will have only half-game in the final wildcard seat. Kansas City’s pitching is so great and still only radiates in around .500, which makes it even more crazy during the offseason. Currently, the value royals get from pitchers is only used to offset the value they lack production on the plate. If their position players are slightly below average, rather than downright terrible, they can now have a playoff location comfortably and look like a true contender in the American League.

This is a very difficult time of the year and requires offensive reinforcements as soon as possible. Before more teams exit the argument, most reasonable moves may be internal moves, who is better than Caglianone? Neither John Rave (recently called) nor Cam Devanney played well this year, but had a trail or a high upside to show that they would increase offense. Most of the team’s other highest offensive prospects are catchers, and none of them attack like Kagriaxone.

From a projection perspective, Kagriaxone was the biggest enabler of the spring, from the projected WRC++ 72 to 96, in large part because of his much less professional experience in the past. As one would expect, his 14 home runs and a .593 slip percentage would only make the zipper even more exciting. Now we have a big professional competition, and among senior minors, not only the projection continues to improve, but the error bar is tightened.

Zips now predicts that Caglianone (if promoted to major) will reach .263/.335/.459, enough to get 120 OPS+ and 118 WRC+. Despite his outstanding performance this year, he did not expect immediate phenomena; it might be unrealistic to expect him to come in and become Yordan Alvarez immediately. But the royals don’t need him to be Alvarez – although that’s surely good – they just need him to be better than they have now.

My colleagues Eric Longenhagen and James Fegan discussed Caglianone on the Royals’ top prospects list, which was published Thursday. As mentioned earlier, he is not someone who wants to bring too much defensive value to the desktop. He relies on his impressive strength to save him when he connects with something that might not be swinging, but it will be harder to align with MLB pitches, which will be even more difficult. Unless he improves the plate discipline overnight, he may need to adjust on his first arrival.

Of course, these are all questions, but I think they are other reasons to promote him. If Caglianone needs time to adapt to the major, the sooner he starts the adjustment period, the sooner he will come out. He won’t learn to be more patient with minor league pitchers considering that he has destroyed them through his current methods. I think his chances of improving plate discipline in a pitcher are actually enough to challenge his environment.

Calling Caglianone to the Grand Slam brings some risks, but there are risks if you don’t call him. Leaving him in a triple A would mean more status quo, with Royals still in the playoffs, despite top pitchers and giant shortstops. Every champion team in baseball history has to win some dice rolls, and I can’t think of a better gambling than Kansas City, which promotes cags, is going to go now.