Shohei Ohtani has opened the door in MLB for a two-way player to ascend to stardom. Will Jac Caglianone get to pitch in the pros?
Before [autotag]Jac Caglianone[/autotag] became the home run king at Florida, he was a pitching prospect starting to unlock some power at the plate.
Odds were slim that Caglianone would even make it to Gainesville until a torn UCL removed him from draft boards across the country. His power fastball from the left side intrigued everyone, especially [autotag]Kevin O’Sullivan[/autotag], who planned on redshirting Caglianone as he recovered from Tommy John surgery.
Sully scrapped that plan two months into the 2022 season and the rest is history. As the Gators skipper tells it, Caglianone’s raw power couldn’t be denied in practice and the doctors cleared him to swing in-game.
It took just three at-bats for Cags to get ahold of one, and 74 more homers later it’s hard to imagine him as anything but one of the most dangerous bats in the game.
At the same time, Caglianone has followed the path most would expect a top-end pitching prospect after undergoing Tommy John. He rehabbed for a year, showed the same velocity in his first season back and cleaned up some command problems while developing his secondaries in 2024.
Yet the scouting community seems to be split on whether it’s worth trying to develop both sides of his game in the minor leagues.
Why aren’t their two-way players in MLB?
Most players are drafted for their bat or their arm, and Caglianone doesn’t have a cheap price tag on him as a projected top-five pick. Developing two things at once takes more time, and first-round picks tend to have a clock on them — at least among the fans who are desperate for one player to turn things around.
Caglianone is still very much a work in progress on the mound, but he could have a [autotag]Wyatt Langford[/autotag]-esque ascension through the minors as a hitter. Most teams won’t pay $8 million and wait for one half of his game to catch up with the other, especially if the MLB-ready half can produce 25-plus home runs a season.
Not can’t or shouldn’t. Won’t.
Baseball might be a slower game than most on the field, but the business side of it demands quick results. It’s why the game only has one two-way star right now.
Shohei Ohtani is the greatest two-way star in the sport since Babe Ruth, but he probably wouldn’t hold that title if he had been born in America. Specialization is the name of the game over here, and he would have been made to pick one or the other by the time he hit the minor leagues.
Playing in the Nippon Professional Baseball league and going straight to MLB through the posting system kept the minor-league system from “beating it out of him.”
At least, that’s what some folks on the developmental side of baseball suggested to CBS Sports recently.
“I think Ohtani would’ve been funneled into hitting,” one specialist said. “He’s very dangerous when he comes to the box, and, to me, the likelihood a coordinator, coach, agent … whoever it may have been … would have led him that way.”
That doesn’t bode well for Caglianone’s future as a two-way player.
Ultimately, it’s up to the organization that drafts him. Some front offices are willing to give players more time, but a guarantee could also earn a team a discount in the draft.
Follow us @GatorsWire on X, formerly known as Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Florida Gators news, notes and opinions.
X
!
