Florida Baseball star Jac Caglianone slips out of top five at MLB Draft

All season long, almost every mock draft had Florida Baseball star Jac Caglianone getting drafted in the top five of the 2024 MLB Draft. Even heading into yesterday's draft, some projections had him going as high as second to the Cincinnati Reds.

But when all was said and done, Caglianone fell out of the top five and was drafted sixth by the Kansas City Royals.

Florida Baseball: Royalty

The top five picks had a couple of surprises that led to Caglianone falling out. The first was Cincinnati opting for a pitcher and drafting Chase Burns out of Wake Forest. Given the dimensions of their ballpark, Caglianone would have been a great addition for the Reds but it wasn't meant to be.

Then after Colorado took Georgia's Charlie Condon third overall. That wasn't too shocking but it meant that Caglianone was in line to get drafted by Oakland with the fourth pick. As we highlighted yesterday in our piece of what would be the ideal spot for him to land, Oakland would have been a disaster for Caglianone to go to.

In a bit of a surprise pick, the A's opted instead for Nick Kurtz out of Wake Forest. Whether that's because they liked Kurtz better than Caglianone or because they wanted to save a bit of money we won't know for a while. But this is the A's, so...

The Chicago White Sox opted to also go for pitching and took Hagen Smith from Arkansas fifth overall, which paved the way for Kansas City to take Caglianone.

In terms of fit, the Royals seem to finally be getting their feet back under them this season. After going to back-to-back World Series in 2014 and 2015, winning it in 2015, the Royals haven't won more than 65 games since 2018. This year however they are on pace for their best season since 2015 with a record of 52-45.

Currently playing 1st base for Kansas City is Vinnie Pasquantino, a .243 hitter with 11 homers on the season, so the opportunity for Caglianone to work his way up is definitely there.