Florida Gators two-way star Jac Caglianone, widely expected to be one of the first 10 picks in next month’s Major League Baseball amateur draft, hit a go-ahead three-run home run as part of Saturday’s Super Regionals game against the Clemson Tigers.
Caglianone’s home run came in the fifth inning and with the Gators trailing the Tigers by a 4-2 score. He jumped on an 0-1 fastball from Clemson lefty Tristan Smith, sending the ball out to left field for an opposite-field shot that gave the Gators a 5-4 advantage. Take a look:
In his first two at-bats of the afternoon, Caglianone singled and popped up.
Caglianone, 21, batted .411/.526/.847 with 31 home runs, 63 runs batted in, and three stolen bases over the course of 60 games. Meanwhile, as a pitcher, he amassed a 4.57 ERA and a 1.65 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Caglianone is viewed as a better pro prospect as a hitter thanks to his incredible combination of strength and bat-to-ball skills. The main knock on his game at this stage is that he’s a little too swing-happy, causing him to expand his strike zone with great regularity. Still, it’s rare to see a player put up the kind of exit velocity and contact rates that he has this year.
Caglianone wasn’t the only one of the draft class’s top slugging prospects involved in the news cycle on Saturday. Texas A&M Aggies outfielder Braden Montgomery appeared to suffer a foot and/or leg injury on an awkward slide against the Oregon Ducks. Montgomery, too, was forecasted as a top-10 pick by the scouts and front-office types who had spoken to CBS Sports on the matter.
