One of baseball’s most highly touted prospects is reportedly on his way to the majors.
The Kansas City Royals are promoting slugger Jac Caglianone from Triple-A Omaha, as ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported Sunday night. He’s expected to join the club in St. Louis for the start of a three-game series against the Cardinals that begins Tuesday.
The team officially announced the move Monday morning, selecting Caglianone’s contract from the minors and optioning outfielder Dairon Blanco to Triple-A to make room on the 26-man roster.
Caglianone, Kansas City’s top-ranked prospect and the industry’s No. 10 per MLB Pipeline, has soared through the organization’s farm system since being selected sixth overall nearly a year ago.
The 22-year-old began his professional career at High-A last season, blasting a pair of home runs and driving in 14 while slashing .241/.302/.388 across 29 games. Given those underwhelming results, it was clear he had battled fatigue down the stretch while playing into September for the first time.
But the left-handed-hitting phenom has looked much more like himself thus far in 2025. He dominated Double-A pitching this spring, exploding for nine home runs and 43 RBIs in just 38 games, featuring an eye-popping .322/.394/.553 slash line with a 157 wRC+ (100 league average).
Despite being promoted to Triple-A last month, Caglianone – who played his final Double-A game on May 18 – still leads all qualified Texas League hitters in SLG and OPS (.947) and ranks second in wRC+.
In 12 Triple-A games, the 6-foot-5 slugger crushed six home runs and drove in 13, slashing .319/.370/.723 with a 166 wRC+. He also displayed exceptional plate discipline, earning five walks to his nine strikeouts.
Few players at such a young age can hit balls harder than Caglianone, who currently sits fourth in barrel rate (17.5 percent), fifth in average exit velocity (93.8 mph) and sixth in hard-hit rate (57.5 percent) amongst qualified Triple-A hitters (min. 50 plate appearances) at every level since May 20.
Prior to being drafted by the Royals organization, Caglianone posted a combined 68 home runs and 162 RBIs across 137 games during his final two seasons at the University of Florida. He featured a slugging percentage of at least .730 in each of those seasons.
The Tampa Bay, FL, native was also a two-way star in college, compiling 170 strikeouts over 148.1 innings from 2023-24. But he hasn’t thrown a single pitch since being drafted and will likely continue to hit exclusively moving forward.
In the field, Caglianone has mostly fielded reps at first base, logging a combined 283 innings at the position between Double-A and Triple-A this season. He’s occasionally appeared in both corner outfield spots, though, making two career starts in left and 12 in right.
From a defensive perspective, the Royals will likely ease Caglianone into life as a major leaguer by primarily deploying him as their DH, which should increase his odds of providing a massive spark at the plate for an offence that’s produced the fewest home runs (34) in the sport thus far.
-Thomas Hall
Twitter: @Hall_Thomas_
Photo: Minda Haas Kuhlmann. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.