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When will Jac Caglianone make his MLB debut?

On3 imageby: Keith Niebuhr05/29/25On3Keith
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(Steven Branscombe-USA TODAY Sports)

When might Florida Gators baseball great Jac Caglianone, now playing for Triple-A Omaha, make his Major League debut? Jeff Passan of ESPN addressed that subject Thursday.

“Early in spring training, a Royals official laid out a potential timeline for Caglianone’s ascent to the big leagues. Fortune had struck the previous July when the 6-foot-5, 250-pound, power-hitting, gas-throwing two-way player slipped to them with the sixth pick in the 2024 draft. Caglianone, the official said, would start at Double-A, ditch pitching and get most of his reps at first base — where he had played at the University of Florida — before transitioning to Triple-A and spending most of his time in right field to prepare for where he could be needed most in the majors.”

Sure enough, after crushing the baseball in Double-A, Caglianone recently was promoted to Triple-A and played his first game there May 20. He’s 12 of 35 at the plate with Omaha — and has 5 homers with 10 RBI. Meanwhile, he’s getting a lot of action in right field while also seeing time at first base.

As Passan noted, “The fear over Kansas City’s outfield depth was acute. The Royals made the 2024 postseason in spite of their outfield, and they returned a similar group this season with similar results so far: a combined .236/.285/.332 line. Caglianone himself has twice as many home runs as all the Royals’ outfielders put together. In a four-game stretch last week following his promotion to Triple-A, he hit five home runs, nearly as many as Kansas City’s outfield collective has hit all season.”

Despite all of this, the Royals do not seem to be in a rush to call Caglianone up to the majors.

“We just want him to face more advanced pitching in Triple-A, see how they game-plan for him, how he adapts and makes adjustments,” Royals Royals general manager J.J. Picollo told Passan. “Not just game to game but at-bat to at-bat. Is he learning how better, more skilled pitchers can execute a game plan? Is he learning from that, and is he making those adjustments?”

According to Passan, one emphasis in the coaching/development of Caglianone is improving his chase rate. At Florida, Passan noted, “he offered at 41.6% of pitches out of the strike zone — a number exceeded by only five qualified big league players this season. For a man of his size and strength, Caglianone possessed uncommon bat-to-ball skills, but his swing decisions needed fixing.”

Now, he’s seeing great improvement in this area.

Said Passan, “Caglianone’s chase rate is down to 34.2%, though, and that’s facing competition in the upper minor leagues whose talent and stuff dwarf the vast majority of SEC pitching.”

As for that call up to the big leagues? For Jac Caglianone, the wait should be over this summer. “He’ll almost certainly be with the Royals when they face the Red Sox at Fenway on Aug. 4,” Passan wrote.

You can read the entire article HERE.

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