Why Jac Caglianone slumped in his first month — and the part he must change
A game found Jac Caglianone in the way you dream about as a kid — trailing by one run, bottom of the ninth, bases loaded, game in his hands.
The rally required seven minutes to build, and then?
Poof.
It disappeared in an instant — Caglianone swung at the first pitch, a ball high and above the strike zone, and grounded into a game-ending double play.
It’s been a bumpy start for the 22-year-old lefty, stuck in a 1-for-33 slump as of this writing, in a sport that provides bumpy starts for a lot of 22-year-olds.
He’s one month into what figures to be a long career. Can’t forget that context as we progress through this. But that month is the lone major-league evaluation we have of the Royals’ top prospect, so let’s dig into the reasons behind the slow start.
And at the outset, I want to revert back to that sequence against the Dodgers, which came Friday night in Kansas City. Caglianone grounded into a double play to end the game.
The double play provided the headline of the game.
Another word provides the headline of the month: grounded.
In his first month in the major leagues, Caglianone hit the ball on the ground a lot — and by a lot, I mean far too frequently for someone with his kind of home run power. An astounding 58% of his batted balls were grounders, according to data provided by Statcast. He obviously hasn’t had enough plate appearances to be a qualifying hitter yet, but 256 MLB players do qualify for the batting title, and only three of the 256 have hit the ball on the ground at a higher rate than 58%. (Christian Yelich is at the same rate.)
Three!
It is notable to point out those three hitters are Jose Iglesias (Padres), Jacob Young (Nationals) and Jake Mangum (Rays).
It is far more notable to point out the combined season home run total for the three: one.
Yelich, who has the fourth-lowest air percentage inexplicably, has 16 home runs, but six of the bottom eight players on the list have hit two home runs or fewer. That offers a sense of why this is an important stat, particularly for a player whom the Royals called up because of his home run power. It’s difficult to hit the ball over the fence when it’s bouncing along the infield.
Whatever the impetus for his high ground-ball rate — and some have pointed out a slouch in his stance — it has to change to unlock his home run potential, and that potential is massive.
Baseballs pulled in the air produce incredibly productive batted-ball profiles. Over the last three years, pulled air batted balls resulted in a .547 average and 1.227 slugging percentage, per Statcast research. That’s where Caglianone can and should thrive, especially because his bat speed is top-rate, but he’s pulled only 11.8% of his batted balls in the air, which would rank 224th among 256 qualified hitters.
Wonder why we’ve seen just two home runs in his first month? That’s a good place to look. He’s topping the ball.
The sum is a .157 average and .258 slugging percentage through 94 plate appearances. I outlined a month ago why this all might take some time, which should’ve been obvious because it’s rare these things don’t take time.
But some aspects of his start have been a bit more surprising than others.
Caglianone has swung at 66 pitches out of the zone. A total of 24 of those pitches have concluded an at-bat, and he’s 1-for-24 when chasing. He had the 21st highest chase percentage in the majors in June.
We expected that. But less expected? He hasn’t done damage on the pitches in the strike zone to make up for it.
In two weeks with Triple-A Omaha, Caglianone hit .382 with a .941 slugging percentage when swinging at strikes. If you threw the ball over the plate, he crushed it.
In his first month in the majors, though, Caglianone is batting .224 with a .338 slugging percentage on pitches in the zone. That slugging percentage ranked 251st among 282 hitters in June on strikes.
To be fair, tucked into that metric is something else at play, and probably something no one likes to hear: Caglianone has dealt with some bad luck.
His expected slugging percentage on strikes, for example, is .555, and his expected average .339. The difference between the expected rates and the actual rates ranked him among the 11 unluckiest hitters in baseball in the metric. That’s a data point outside the control of a 22-year-old learning MLB pitching.
The loft is something he has to regain within his control. And, yes, recognizing pitches, spin, break and the stuff for MLB pitchers is an adjustment that affects that. There’s a correlation there. It doesn’t typically come quickly. It hasn’t come quickly, or at least in the initial month.
None of this is an indication that he won’t heat up.
It’s an indication of where that has to start.