Jac Caglianone’s recent surge has become one of the few reasons to keep watching this Royals season, and the timing has raised a pretty simple question: does he hit better when he’s stationed at first base?
The numbers at least make the idea worth poking at. Since July 30, Caglianone has been red-hot, batting .396 with a 230 wRC+ and piling up nine extra-base hits in 12 games, including four doubles and five homers. He also launched his 20th home run of the season against Tarik Skubal, a reminder that the rookie’s bat is starting to look like something more than a platoon weapon.
A big part of that stretch has lined up with a change in where he’s playing. Vinnie Pasquantino went on the IL on July 29, and that has pushed Caglianone mostly over to first base. In those 12 games, he has started at first base in 10, played right field once, and split the two spots in another.
That matters because Caglianone has been playable in right field, but not exactly comfortable there. His arm is good, his range is not, and he still looks like a first baseman trying to make it work in the outfield. Long term, the expectation is that he ends up at first base or DH, whether that’s in Kansas City or somewhere else.
The Royals had good reasons to begin the season with Pasquantino at first and Caglianone in right. Pasquantino would have looked rough in the outfield, and Kauffman Stadium’s fences may be in, but there’s still plenty of ground to cover.
Now that Pasquantino is hurt again and his future with the Royals feels less certain, the conversation has shifted. The question isn’t just where Caglianone belongs defensively.
It’s whether the spot he plays changes the way he hits.
The sample is still small enough that anyone declaring a verdict is probably getting ahead of themselves. Heading into Tuesday’s game, Caglianone had 113 plate appearances as a first baseman and 281 as a right fielder. That kind of split can be driven by timing, variance or a hot streak that happened to overlap with a position change.
Even so, there are two patterns that stand out. When Caglianone has played first base, he has been more aggressive at the plate. He has also produced more power.
Here’s the split in his approach: as a first baseman in 2026, his O-Swing% was 45.90%, his Z-Swing% was 77.10%, his Swing% was 59.90%, his O-Contact% was 64.00%, his Z-Contact% was 86.20%, and his Contact% was 76.90%. As a right fielder, those numbers drop to 35.10%, 70.00%, 50.80%, 54.50%, 84.00% and 72.70%.
The contact rate and swing rate differences are enough to catch your eye, especially given the size of the samples involved. The first-base version of Caglianone has simply been more willing to swing and a little better at putting bat to ball.
The power gap is there too. He has hit 11 home runs as a first baseman and nine as a right fielder, despite having more than twice as many plate appearances in the outfield.
The Statcast data leans the same way. As a first baseman, he has 86 events, a 93.9 average exit velocity, a 115.3 max EV, a 9 launch angle, 15 barrels, a 17.40% barrel rate, 45 hard-hit balls, a 52.30% hard-hit rate, a .283 average, a .323 xBA, a .619 slugging percentage, a .656 xSLG, a .386 wOBA and a .417 xwOBA.
As a right fielder, he has 185 events, a 93.3 EV, a 116.1 max EV, a 6.1 launch angle, 26 barrels, a 14.10% barrel rate, 108 hard-hit balls, a 58.40% hard-hit rate, a .272 average, a .272 xBA, a .455 slugging percentage, a .474 xSLG, a .345 wOBA and a .349 xwOBA.
That doesn’t prove first base is the magic switch. It may just be that the results and the position are showing up together for reasons that won’t hold up over time.
But there is a plausible explanation for why it could matter: playing outfield takes more energy, and maybe more mental energy, than first base does for Caglianone. If that’s true, the extra burden could be making him less selective and costing him some pop.
Maikel Garcia has talked about how playing outfield, along with adjusting to the pitch clock, wore him down early in the season. Once he settled in at third base, he felt better at the plate and better in the field. It’s not a perfect comparison, but it does point to a real possibility that comfort at a position can spill over into performance with the bat.
That’s why it makes sense for the Royals to spend the rest of this lost season giving Caglianone more time at first base. It wouldn’t settle the argument completely, but it would give the team more information heading toward a possible 2027 push. Pasquantino can DH, Salvador Perez can cover first occasionally and also spell Caglianone, and Salvy doesn’t need to be locked into full-time plate appearances for the rest of the year.
If Kansas City wants Caglianone to be more than just a useful hitter next season, it helps to know whether the version they’ve seen at first base is the real one. The difference between a potential 40-homer bat and a merely above-average hitter is a big one. The early data says there may be something here, and in a season this bleak, the Royals ought to find out.
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