The Royals have already shown they’re willing to lock up cornerstone talent early, and Jac Caglianone now looks like the next name to watch.
That’s the temptation in Kansas City right now: get ahead of the market before the price climbs even higher. Pre-arbitration extensions have become a common play around MLB, with teams using guaranteed money to buy out some of those early years before a player reaches free agency.
The Royals have already gone down that road with Bobby Witt Jr. and, more recently, Maikel Garcia. Caglianone could be next.
The former sixth overall pick gave the front office plenty to think about in his first full big-league season. In 143 games, the right fielder/ first baseman hit .289 with an .834 OPS, along with 23 home runs, 32 doubles and 75 RBIs. He also ranked among the best hitters in the game in average exit velocity, hard-hit rate and bat speed, which only added to the sense that his power is very real.
And the clock is on Kansas City’s side - for now. Caglianone still has just one year of service time, which means the Royals control him for another five seasons. They can let that run its course and deal with the contract question later, but that path gets riskier if he keeps trending toward stardom.
There are plenty of recent deals to use as guideposts, though not all of them line up cleanly. Ronald Acuna Jr., Jackson Chourio and Julio Rodriguez all signed pre-arbitration extensions as outfielders.
A more useful comp may be Athletics first baseman Tyler Soderstrom, who landed a seven-year, $86 million extension after producing similar numbers in his first season. Jackson Merrill and Michael Harris Jr. are also in the conversation, but both are full-time center fielders, which makes the comparison less direct.
With contract inflation in the mix, Caglianone would likely end up above the eight-year, $72 million deal Harris signed in 2023, but still below Merrill’s nine-year, $135 million contract.
A reasonable framework would land around seven years and $95 million, with a club option for an eighth season. That kind of structure would buy out two or three free-agent years and keep his average annual value near $13.5 million, a number that would fit well for Kansas City. The contract would almost certainly be backloaded, too, with salary climbing over time toward something closer to market value as the deal moves along.
Even with a club option attached, Caglianone could still reach free agency at 31 or 32, which would leave him room for one more major payday later in his career. That’s the kind of flexibility these deals can create for both sides.
For the Royals, the bigger question is timing. Moves like this are a staple for small-market clubs because they can save money over the long haul, and Kansas City has to think hard about protecting its core. With Witt already secured and Caglianone emerging so quickly, this is the sort of extension that could help keep the Royals’ most important pieces in place deep into the 2020s.
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