Weekend in Review: Jac is Arriving, the Royals Struggle Again and More

The Royals sure didn't want the fans to be down after the weekend, so they gave us all a little (very large) present.

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Everything became secondary to the weekend’s games at about 9:12 p.m. when Jeff Passan announced that the Royals were calling up Jac Caglianone from AAA Omaha. As I wrote last week, I had been told by someone who would absolutely know that the discussions about bringing him up were “intensifying” and even after the report from Passan himself that the Royals would likely bring him up soon after his third full week in Omaha, I thought it might even be sooner than that after what I had heard. I’m going to get to Caglianone here in just a minute before I even get to the games. Yes, this is big enough news that I’m going back to the old Weekend in Review layout!

This weekend, though, showed us why the pitcher win is something that I will never, ever care about. Tarik Skubal, Michael Wacha and Kris Bubic combined to throw 21 innings with one run on seven hits allowed. They struck out 22 and walked three. The trio went 0-1 this weekend. On the plus side, I did not get the impression at any point that the Tigers were significantly better than the Royals. In fact, I got the impression that if the Royals had just about anyone who could do damage that the Royals may have swept the series. They got hit around a bit on Friday in the return of a key starter, but the pitching staff generally handled an offense that’s been really good this season, holding them to eight runs all weekend.

There are no trophies for looking like you belong with the best team in baseball (by record, I still don’t think the Tigers are that good), but I’d still rather see them look like they belong on the same field than not. And it just goes back to the point I made the other day that I’m going to make again before I get to what you’re all here to read. The fact that we are legitimately upset about a team that is over .500 after Memorial Day shows how far this organization has come. There were many on social media when I put this out there who didn’t understand what I was saying because having two thoughts at once is difficult for some, but I think perspective is very important.

Two years ago, fans would have been doing backflips to be 31-29, and it wouldn’t have mattered how they got there. They could have won 31 games 1-0 and lost 29 games 10-0 and the record would have been all that mattered. Expectations are higher now, and rightfully so. Because of that, 31-29, particularly the way they’ve gotten there, isn’t good enough. I think it’s okay to take a step back and make a mental note of the fact that it isn’t good enough and how great that is that the organization has created expectations that simply being average to slightly above average isn’t good enough. I’m frustrated and you should be too. But it’s okay to be frustrated and see the big picture that it’s pretty cool we’re frustrated by a winning team just two years after they finished 50 games under .500.

Jac Attack

Okay, here we go. Let’s talk about Jeffrey Alan Caglianone. Before we get into who he is, I’ve already gotten over this, but I still struggle with him being Jac Caglianone with his “first” name just his initials and then still using his last name. It’s like ATM machine or PIN number. I’m going to get over it, but I had to say it. Okay, now let’s talk about Jac.

The Royals couldn’t wait any longer, promoting the 22-year old less than a year after he was drafted sixth overall out of Florida. He’s actually the third member of the 2024 first round to be promoted. Cam Smith (14th overall) made the Astros out of spring training (and it’s been an okay ride for him) and Nick Kurtz (fourth overall) was called up by the A’s a few weeks ago and is now on the IL, but he’s come alive after an adjustment period. They couldn’t wait because after Caglianone mastered AA, he actually put up even sillier numbers in AAA, though some of that is getting to spend his first week in Salt Lake City.

Overall, Caglianone hit .322/.389/.593 between AA and AAA in 50 gmes and 229 plate appearances. His 166 wRC+ equaled that of what MJ Melendez put up in AAA after his promotion in 2021 and was nine points higher than the 157 he posted in AA. I don’t bring up Melendez to give anyone the ick because Melendez’s 2021 is still one of the gold standards in Royals organizational history for minor league success. One player’s struggles after the fact don’t mean anything for a different player four years later.

Caglianone made a case for the big league roster with a torrid spring, but I still believe the Royals made the right decision sending him to AA to start the year. It’s not that they couldn’t have obviously used him with the struggles the offense had, but they have a responsibility to develop the player. Caglianone had big chase numbers in college, in his debut in high-A and in the Arizona Fall League. He also didn’t have that much success, if we’re being honest. There were any number of reasons for the lack of success in his transition to professional baseball, but there still wasn’t great success.

So he was in AA with two tasks. Show that the approach was good enough to move up and, eventually start to learn the outfield. He showed pretty early that the approach would work, at least at that level, He hit .346/.406/.615 in his first six games with a workable 21.9 percent strikeout rate. He then went 2 for his next 28 with one homer and a 30 percent strikeout rate and that may have been the best thing to happen to him. I remember back when Zack Greinke was coming up, the Royals really wanted him to struggle so he could learn to respond to it. He never did in the minors. Sometimes failing/struggling is a good thing for a prospect. And Caglianone rebounded in a huge way.

He had hits in 23 of his next 25 AA games, hitting .388/.460/.633 with a now even better 18.6 percent strikeout rate. He also carried a walk rate of 11.5 percent. That’s elite stuff. He ended up playing 12 games in AAA, had hits in 10 of them and hit .319/.370/.723 with a 16.7 percent strikeout rate (and 9.3 percent walk rate). The best part about AAA is there are Statcast metrics. Check these out for Caglianone:

• .321 xBA

• .735 xSLG

• .452 xwOBA

• 93.8 MPH Exit Velocity

• 57.5% Hard-Hit Rate

• 17.5% Barrel/BBE%

• 13.2% Barrel/PA%

• 22.4% Whiff Rate

This shows the slash line was well-earned. Yes, he will chase. He chased 35.9 percent of the time in AAA. That’s high and he will be exploited on that in some ways in the big leagues. But that number is down from last season at Florida and in the lower levels, so there are signs that he’s putting in the work to improve. Only time will tell if he will improve on it, but the trend is good. And the other side of that is I’m told consistently that his chase issues aren’t as big of a deal as they’d be for other hitters because he has some of the best plate coverage they’ve ever seen and he can still hit balls hard.

I had a hunch that they were really close to bringing him up yesterday morning when I was listening to Matt Quatraro on MLB Network Radio. Jim Bowden brings him up every week to Q and the response was just different this week. He mentioned the chase, but then said something about how when they dug into the numbers, they realized that yes, he will go out of the zone, but he wasn’t chasing egregiously and he was still making strong contact when he made contact. The five balls he made contact on when he chased in AAA had exit velocities of 55.5 MPH, 89.2, 89.3, 99.2 and 96.5. So I’ll buy that a little. One was very weak, two were fine and two were hard contact.

The Royals clearly knew they needed offense. The timing of this move makes some sense. I know that everyone (myself included) thought he’d debut at home, which is why I said June 24 way back in spring training. But a bit of a softer debut on the road makes some sense. It’s not that it wouldn’t be very cool to see him take his first big league at bat with a standing ovation behind him, like Alex Gordon, but there are worse things than getting 20-25 plate appearances before that ovation.

I do wonder a little bit if they made this move after either or both of these things became true. Did they try to swing a trade and couldn’t get anywhere because it’s still so early? And is Maikel Garcia hurt badly enough that he’ll miss some time? I want to make it clear that Caglianone banged down the door to get called up, but he still only played 14 games (123 innings) in the outfield, which is where he’ll spend a lot of time in the big leagues. He looked pretty good, from what I’ve been told, but that’s still not much time there.

The upside for him and this offense can’t be measured, truly. I think if he gets 350-400 plate appearances, he’s going to hit 15-25 home runs just from swinging the bat. Will it come with a .175 average or a .275 average? I don’t know that, but the Royals added something they have basically none of this year - power - and they did it with a player who will excite a fanbase that is growing increasingly restless. That’s never a reason to do something, but it’s a nice side effect.

We’ll see what the corresponding roster move is for him, probably tomorrow. The way I see it, there are four real candidates: Michael Massey (my top candidate), John Rave, Dairon Blanco or Garcia going on the IL. Either way, the Royals have gotten a little more interesting at a time when they are decidedly not interesting.

The Games

Friday - Tigers 7, Royals 5

I don’t have a ton to say about this game actually. Seth Lugo returned and looked like he really should have had a rehab start. He was leaving pitches in places he typically doesn’t and wasn’t even really mixing his pitches the way he usually does. I guess that’s not fair since he only threw 69 due to leaving so quickly due to ineffectiveness, but he just didn’t have any of his pitch timing down. His curveball was way harder than usual with more spin. His slider was way softer than usual with way more spin. I don’t know. It was just uneven. It’s all hindsight, but they made a big mistake in not giving him a rehab start.

There were some nice flashes from the offense. Bobby Witt Jr. hit an absolute tank in the first inning.

And in the third, the Royals got a one-out walk from Vinnie Pasquantino and then a double from Salvador Perez and a walk from Garcia. Drew Waters came through with his hardest-hit non-home run of his career, a rocket up the middle. If you want to know why exit velocity matters, his two-run single is an out if it’s hit like a mile per hour slower.

But ultimately, it was just a lot more of the same. The Royals were 2 for 11 with runners in scoring position (so 1 for 10 other than Waters single) and left 11 on while they ended up losing by two.

One thing I want to touch on was Andrew Hoffmann’s big league debut. First of all, his changeup is filthy. But he struggled. He gave up a homer to the first batter and another run soon thereafter. He entered when the game was 5-4 in the eighth and let me tell you the hindsight crew was out in full force after that. Why would you put a guy in his big league debut in that spot?

Here is my thought process. I will entertain an argument that Hoffmann should have come in for the seventh when Taylor Clarke did, but I won’t even entertain it that long. The reality is that if you’re waiting for a game to not be close for the Royals to debut a rookie reliever, he will never pitch. The Royals play exclusively close games because they pitch well and can’t hit. So getting that part of the way, let’s look at the situation and why I get it.

I mentioned pitching him in the seventh when Clarke entered. Okay, I get the idea of getting him in there earlier, but that’s also the 2-3-4 of the lineup, so I don’t love that for a debut either. So now you have to look at the bullpen situation. Daniel Lynch IV was used to get Lugo out of trouble in the fourth (he did). Jonathan Bowlan was used to get Lynch out of trouble in the fifth (he sort of did). Bowlan was then used for another full inning so as not to completely waste him. Then you get Clarke in the seventh in the meat of the lineup. So those three are done, obviously, and no clear spot to get Hoffmann in before that unless you only wanted a third of an inning from Bowlan.

Now you’re left with Hoffmann, Angel Zerpa, Steven Cruz, John Schreiber and Carlos Estevez. I think it’s pretty clear that Schreiber and Estevez are saved for leads right now. So it’s Hoffmann, Zerpa and Cruz. I kind of feel like Cruz is a key setup man now with Lucas Erceg out a couple of weeks. So it’s Hoffmann or Zerpa. The first batter Hoffmann was set to face was Spencer Torkelson, a righty. Zerpa had allowed a 1.022 OPS to righties at that point. You want Cruz there? Fine. But I don’t think it was nearly the egregious decision everyone else seemed to.

Saturday - Royals 1, Tigers 0

This was an incredible game, and I’ve said this before, but even if you’re a Tigers fan, you’ll agree with that. Or you should at least. Michael Wacha matched Tarik Skubal pitch-for-pitch and was maybe even a touch better. Wacha carried a no-hitter into the seventh before giving up a clean single, but he was absolutely freaking brilliant in this one and the Royals needed every inch of it. It looked like Wacha was maybe throwing a slightly different changeup in this one, which is interesting because if he made his best pitch better, watch out.

It was a bit slower and with some different vertical break. And it was giving Tigers hitters fits.

That is just filth. He was just getting tons of weak contact all day and swing and miss on that changeup as well. He had Tigers hitters chasing it (63 percent chase on the changeup and 36 percent overall) and taking strikes. It was really an incredible performance. If I hadn’t written so much about Caglianone, I’d go on for another 800 words about him, but you’re already glazing over.

The big hit came in the eighth after both starters had exited. Nick Loftin started the inning with a loud double. He barreled it, his second of the year in very few plate appearances, which is a great sign. He only had four barrels in 171 plate appearances last year. He has two now in 18 (after Sunday) this year. And then, Pasquantino came through, which reminded us of last season for just a moment.

I’d like to point out that this was the second excellent send of the week by Vance Wilson. He gets a lot of criticism for some reason, but he’s pretty good at this job, I think.

Sunday - Tigers 1, Royals 0

It was another 1-0 game, but there was nothing great about it as a game. Kris Bubic was outstanding, but I don’t think Keider Montero pitched particularly well. The Royals knocked him around in the first, but couldn’t score and he was out of the game before the end of the fifth. Some of that is by design with him, but the Royals just missed more opportunities. This could have easily been a 4-1 or 5-1 win and still felt like they missed chances, but instead, they couldn’t push a single run across. They had eight baserunners against him in 4.2 innings. They then had two more the rest of the way against the Tigers bullpen.

And it’s a huge bummer because Kris Bubic was outstanding again. Here’s his line in a loss:

7 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 9 K, 2 BB

It lowered his ERA to 1.43, which leads the majors. The only run allowed came after a leadoff triple in the third. Bubic got a groundout of the next hitter and the runner couldn’t advance. Then on a 2-1 pitch to Gleyber Torres, Bubic bounced a sweeper that got away from Perez. And Perez just stopped going after the ball.

Typically, this would make sense. Save some energy, that run is scoring. But Zach McKinstry wasn’t coming down the line for some reason. He must have not read it well. But this is a BAD look for Perez. It gets worse when you see the final score. Torres would walk and then Riley Greene blooped a single, so maybe the run scores anyway. Or maybe Greene is pitched differently and the sequence changes. I don’t know. I guess it doesn’t matter when the offense can’t score a single run anyway, but that’s really frustrating.

I have to assume this was the final straw and the Royals just said they’d have to let Caglianone continue to develop in the big leagues after this offensive showing.

On the bright side, I would bet that if the season ended today, Bubic wins the Cy Young. He probably has 18-20 more starts, so let’s not get fully ahead of ourselves, but he is nails.

Player of the Week

Another two-win week means another week of not many candidates for this prestigious honor. With Lugo’s return, no starter pitched more than once. Wacha and Bubic were obviously outstanding and so was Noah Cameron on Wednesday, but I continue to struggle with a player of the week maxing out at seven innings. Pasquantino hit .316 with a .458 OBP (the walks might be back!), but didn’t hit an extra base hit. Perez hit .273/.333/.455, which is a solid week, but not great. You can usually count on Witt, but he hit .136/.167/.364, so nope. I’m going to give this to Garcia with his .368/.400/.526 line, which was good for a 159 wRC+ and hope he’s back in the lineup with Caglianone tomorrow.

The Week Ahead

The Royals get a day off today, which is their first of four Mondays with no game scheduled. They’ll head to St. Louis to play the second half of their home-and-home series with three in the city that my dad will tell you stole the arch from Kansas City. I’ll have a preview for you on the YouTube channel tomorrow, but the pitching matchups appear to be:

• Tuesday: RHP Michael Lorenzen vs. RHP Andre Pallante

• Wednesday: LHP Noah Cameron vs. RHP Miles Mikolas

• Thursday: LHP Cole Ragans vs. LHP Matthew Liberatore

Ragans had a tough rehab start in AA this past weekend, but it’s not about results on those and if he’s healthy, he’ll be back in the rotation for the finale. Remember to keep an eye on the channel for the preview tomorrow.

After leaving St. Louis, they’ll head to Chicago to take on the White Sox for the second time this season. You might recall they swept a four-game series from them a few weeks ago during the good times. Since they lost a season-high three-game winning streak on May 15, they’ve gone 4-12 and get Detroit for four this week, so they could be really sliding by the time the Royals get to town. I’ll have a preview for that one later in the week, but this has a chance to be a week they can get back on track. If they can’t, well, there’s still plenty of season left, but it’ll feel like a missed opportunity.