MOVEMENT: Royals pick crucial crushes first pro homer
After setting both the single-season (35) and career (75) home run records at Florida this year, it was only a matter of time before Jac Caglianone showcased his impressive power in the Minors.
However, his first professional home run didn’t happen quite as expected.
The Royals’ sixth overall pick in July’s Draft, Caglianone blasted a grand slam off infielder Jose Acosta, who was pitching in the eighth inning of High-A Quad Cities’ 13-2 victory over Wisconsin at Modern Woodmen Park on Saturday night.
The 6-foot-5 slugger, who is anticipated to be featured in the top half of MLB Pipeline’s updated Top 100 Prospects list next week, initially missed the first pitch of the at-bat and fouled off two more before working a full count. But when he finally got a pitch in the zone, Caglianone crushed it at a reported 109 mph into the Mississippi River.
“My first swing was terrible,” Caglianone admitted. “I had to mentally refocus, reminding myself it’s still a game. I wasn’t trying to swing too hard. But in the end, it turned out well. Though honestly, I consider it a cheap one and don’t really count it.”
Yup, we could get used to this. 🤩
No. 1️⃣ was GRAND!#BanditTogether🦝 pic.twitter.com/IbGXkNL56L
— Quad Cities River Bandits (@QCRiverBandits) August 11, 2024
There’s a bit of irony in the fact that Jac Caglianone, who has been college baseball’s top two-way player for the past two years, hit his first professional home run off an infielder. The Royals, for now, plan to have him focus solely on hitting for the remainder of the season — he logged 73 2/3 innings with the Gators in 2024 — before he resumes his two-way role next year.
Though Acosta wasn’t throwing particularly hard, he kept Caglianone off-balance by pausing his leg lift and playing with his delivery. It was something the Tampa native had never encountered during his three seasons in the SEC.
“That was a first for me,” Caglianone said. “It was comical at first because that’s just how it is when they bring in a position player with a funky delivery. The game doesn’t feel like a real game—it feels like you’re in the backyard. Reminding myself that it’s still a game and that the at-bat still counts really helped me and led to the result it did.”
Just four games into his stint with the River Bandits, Caglianone is confident that his first “real” home run will happen soon.
“I’m just going to keep approaching each day as a new opportunity and take everything pitch by pitch,” Caglianone said. “When that first real one comes, I’ll savor it a bit more.”