MLB Draft notebook: Jac Caglianone showing strides? college starting pitchers, Seaver King impresses

Another look at what's going on with the draft eligible college players.

There perhaps isn’t a more intriguing player in the upcoming MLB draft than Florida two-way player Jac Caglianone.

On the mound, his fastball can flirt with triple digits, and he may have the most raw power in the class while standing in the batter’s box.

For the most part, however, I’ve devoted most of my time elsewhere to watching some of the top players in this draft play.

The talent seems legit, but the red flags seemed like legitimate concerns to take him with a top-10 pick.

At the plate, he had a chase rate of over 40% last year, which didn’t seem like a huge recipe for success once he hit the pro ranks. He also walked over six batters per nine innings last year on the mound.

It was his first year back pitching after missing time with Tommy John, but it certainly is something to monitor if you planned on taking him as a pitcher high in the draft.

On Monday, I decided to go back and watch Caglianone’s start from Sunday against St. Mary’s.

While I won’t say I was impressed, I would lean more toward being intrigued.

Despite the four walks, he did some things better than I expected. He hit his spots with his fastball, including pounding the bottom of the zone for most of the game. When he elevated it, he got it up to 97 mph with late life.

The change-up had a lot of bite to it, and I checked D1Baseball.com and wasn’t surprised to see he had a 66.7% whiff rate with the pitch and that hitters had just a 35.7% in-zone contact rate.

Among pitchers in D1 with at least 50 change-ups thrown, that’s the second-lowest mark.

The fastball is also good, with a 47.7% whiff rate and a 60% zone contact rate (25th lowest among those with 50 fastballs).

Caglianone’s slider has more sweep to it, and while it showed some good break, it sometimes seemed to catch too much of the plate.

Over his last two starts on the mound, Caglianone has pitched 12 shutout innings, allowing just three hits while walking six and striking out 20 batters.

Two of his walks occurred in the last inning of his game against St. Mary’s, where he threw 98 pitches. He also didn’t allow a hit in those six innings.

On the offensive side, he doesn’t wait long to show off that elite raw power. He launched a couple of balls in on the hands foul that were no doubt home runs had he kept them fair.

In the little bit that I have seen from him, he shows a good ability to turn on pitches that are in on the hands, even when chasing out of the zone.

He’s still chasing a bit but has also cut the strikeout rate by 10% this season. He’s also walked (11) more than he has struck out (7) heading into the weekend series. Caglianone walked 17 times last year, so he’s already nearly reached his total from 2023 to 2024.

Caglianone will be an amazing prospect to watch, especially with SEC play coming up. Few players have the raw tools he has on both sides of the ball.

The red flags will still be a concern, but he’s heading in the right direction as SEC play gets ready to kick off. Texas A&M, LSU, and Mississippi State will all provide tough challenges for Caglianone over the next three weekends.

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The Duke/Wake Forest series was supposed to be all about the pitching, apparently Chase Burns was the only one who received that memo.

I was hesitant about Burns, even after his first couple of starts. The stuff is undeniable, but I questioned how it played deeper into games. He was fantastic from start to finish against a tough Duke lineup.

He’s gotten better as the season has gone on, and even if that curveball never becomes an out pitch, his ability to at least show it increases his value as a starter even more.

The slider may be the single best pitch from this draft class.

I haven’t really sat down to try to put the pitchers from this draft class in any specific order yet, but at first glance, Burns is now the clear SP1.

If I had to jot down a bunch of names, they’d probably look like this

Chase Burns

Hagen Smith

Trey Yesavage

Jonathan Santucci

Then, there is any of Drew Beam, Brody Becht, or Luke Holman. Some other names to keep in mind that could move up and that I want to catch more of are Ben Hess, Michael Massey, and Matt Ager.

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Speaking of a Wake Forest player getting better as the season has gone on, Seaver King was having issues making contact early on, but he has been one of the driving forces of that lineup.

He even got into a game at shortstop during the midweek games. His .286/.329/.557 line may be underselling just how good he has been lately.

Wake Forest has another big weekend on the road against UVA.