Royals lineup protection reality could help KC get even more out of Jac Caglianone

A month ago, the Kansas City Royals made the lineup shuffle that fans had hoped for, a change that would hopefully spark new life into the lineup. That has been just the case, as the Royals have been one of the league's most prolific run-scoring teams in June, despite their overall woeful win-loss record. Plenty of role players have found a sweet swing this past month, but none have been louder than outfielder Jac Caglianone.

The Florida alum came just short of the franchise records for June home runs, thanks to his multi-home run games and just overall loud contact. This past month of Caglianone's performance is what Royals fans envisioned when the team drafted him sixth overall back in 2024, and what they wished for during his struggling 2025 performance. But is there another way to get even more out of Caglianone? Fellow lefty slugger Carter Jensen might be the case study for a ludicrous lineup move involving Caglianone.

In that lineup shuffle, Jensen moved to the regular leadoff spot and has been one of Kansas City's best and most consistent batters. His record hitting streak is sniffing Bobby Witt Jr. and Buster Posey territory, two mighty fine names to be alongside. Jensen has mathematically been seeing better pitches to hit, with Pitcher List's pitch hittability metric showing Jensen moving from the 10th to the 75th percentile. It was a huge swing and one that the Royals are seeing the benefits of.

The explanation was straightforward: pitchers cannot afford to pitch around the leadoff hitter when Witt is on deck. Walk Jensen and you bring up a hitter who has led the majors in hits in back-to-back seasons and a major power threat. The cost of putting Jensen on base is too high. So pitchers attacked him, Jensen got better pitches, and the data confirmed what old-school baseball people have argued for decades: lineup protection is real.

Could the Royals get more protection for Jac Caglianone?

Caglianone bats third in the current Kansas City lineup. Witt protects him from the front, which means pitchers have to face a two-time batting champion before they get to Caglianone. While that is valuable, the Jensen precedent raises a different question entirely: who protects Caglianone from behind?

Against right-handed pitching, the hitter directly behind Caglianone is Lane Thomas, who is slashing .211/.327/.333 with five home runs. Against left-handers, the cleanup spot belongs to Salvador Perez, who is hitting .200/.242/.331 at age 36. Neither qualifies as the kind of on-deck presence that forces a pitcher to challenge the batter in front of them. If the lineup protection research stands, and Jensen's case suggests it will, then Caglianone is seeing worse pitches than he should be because the bats behind him do not carry enough threat to punish pitching around him. The same Pitcher List metrics support this, with Caglianone having one of the worst pitch hittability scores in baseball, and still he has turned that into electric moments.

First baseman Vinnie Pasquantino's absence has made the problem worse. Before his right hamate fracture sidelined him on June 13, Pasquantino was the regular third bat in the lineup. His presence changed the math for opposing pitchers, even if his 2026 results left something to be desired. His absence has thinned the middle of the order to the point where the fourth and fifth spots combine for an OPS that would not start on most contending rosters.

Getting better pitches to hit matters more for Caglianone than for Jensen because Caglianone's raw contact quality is not just good. It is historically good for a 23-year-old in his first full season.

His 94.0 mph average exit velocity ranks in the 96th percentile among all major league hitters. His 58.4% hard-hit rate is fifth in baseball, trailing only James Wood (59.5%). His 16.9% barrel rate means he is generating the kind of contact that produces expected batting averages near .500 and slugging percentages above 1.500 at an elite clip. He has hit six home runs in a five-game span, something no Royal had done since Jermaine Dye in July 1999. He leads the American League in runs scored this month with 21, is tied for first in home runs with nine, and ranks second in OPS at 1.080.

And his expected wOBA (.376) is running 19 points above his actual wOBA (.357), which means the results have not yet caught up to the quality of contact. He has been slightly unlucky on top of everything else.

Now layer the lineup protection question on top of all of that. Jensen saw his pitch hittability improve by roughly two full percentage points when Witt moved behind him. If Caglianone saw a comparable improvement, if pitchers were forced to challenge him in the zone because a dangerous hitter sat in the cleanup spot rather than a .211 hitter, the combination of elite exit velocity, elite hard-hit rate, elite barrel rate, and better pitch quality would project something genuinely frightening. A hitter who converts zone pitches into damage at a 96th-percentile exit velocity rate is exactly the profile where a small increase in pitch quality produces an outsized increase in results.

One obvious solution is the one the Royals are already waiting for in Pasquantino's return. The hamate fracture has no firm timeline, but when Pasquantino comes back, he slots naturally into the cleanup spot behind Caglianone and helps the lineup construction immediately. A left-handed bat who slugged .576 in the second half of 2025 is the kind of presence that makes a pitcher think twice about pitching around the hitter in front of him.

If Pasquantino's return is delayed, the internal options are severely limited. John Rave has shown flashes in limited time, a home run, a triple, and an outfield assist all in the same game on June 17, with a .267/.389/.733 slash in seven Royals games, but the sample is tiny and his minor league track record does not scream cleanup hitter. Kameron Misner (.286/.310/.321 since his June 10 recall) has on-base skills but no power. Perez's batting average and declining bat speed make him a liability in the four-hole rather than a threat.

The external solution is the trade deadline, but the Royals are clear sellers rather than buyers at this point of the season. Perhaps they could prioritize a prototypical cleanup hitter as the return for Kris Bubic or Michael Wacha, but a contender likely is not giving up a strong prospect profile for two months of an injured southpaw or the notable contract of an aging vet.

The wild move? Switch Caglianone into the leadoff spot. Now, the lefty is far from the prototypical leadoff man, there is no question about it. But Caglianone is not much slower than Jensen on the basepaths, and if he could do more damage than his teammate, would the marginal plate appearance and lineup protection advantage be worth it? There is only one way to know for sure.

The Royals should not mess with the current lineup simply for the sake of doing something different. Jensen has been great in that role and there is no reason to disrupt that rhythm. But if he falters, then Kansas City will need another option. Caglianone could see the same benefits Jensen did batting in front of Witt, and that could unlock the next level in his batting profile. Emphasis on could.

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