White Sox Draft Target: Jac Caglianone

The White Sox have not given fans much excitement this season, so fans are looking forward to the future, as the White Sox have plenty of talented prospects in the pipeline that should be making an impact in Chicago shortly.

However, the White Sox have a golden opportunity to add to that talented pipeline, as they hold the 5th pick in the upcoming MLB draft. This gives them the opportunity to add another high-impact prospect to their system. Most of the time, the players picked in the top five picks are added to the top-100 list, which can help bolster the White Sox system.

The White Sox will need to capitalize on this top pick, as no matter how bad they do this year, the best they can pick in the 2025 draft will be 10th overall. But luckily for the White Sox, there is a good shot at a game changing prospect, as there are some elite players at the top of the draft.

One of the most exciting players in the draft is Jac Caglianone, a player that has often been compared to Shohei Ohtani. If you are ever compared to Ohtani, that is a good thing.

Caglianone is a two way star from the University of Florida and he would be a top draft pick if he was just a pitcher or just a hitter, but the fact he is elite at both makes him an even more valuable prospect.

So far at the plate, he is hitting .404 with an insane .502 OBP. He has 26 home runs, 53 RBIs and has walked more than he struck out. He is one of, if not the best hitter in the draft, as he just trails the leader in home runs by three.

But, he is not just a force at the plate, as he is also a frontline starter for the Gators as well. While his ERA is a bit higher, at 4.10, he has elite stuff. In 48.1 innings, he has 58 strikeouts, while walking 35. While these numbers aren’t on par with some of the other pitchers in the class, major league teams have a lot of talent to work with.

“While some teams may view him as just a hitter, here is how scouts describe him on MLB pipeline:

A 6-foot-5 physical beast, Caglianone has top of the class left-handed raw power, and he gets to it, as evidenced by his Division I-leading 33 home runs in 2023. He’s very aggressive in the box and there was concern about his tendency to chase pitches out of the zone (44 percent chase rate last year), but he doesn’t strike out a lot and makes a lot of hard contact. He’s cut his miss and chase rates in 2024 and has a miniscule strikeout rate this spring. He’s solid defensively at first base as well. 

The Tommy John surgery survivor struggled to find the strike zone in his first collegiate pitching action last year, but a more compact delivery was helping him stay around the zone more, even if his walk rate still remained high. He touches triple digits with his fastball and he introduced a 90-mph cutter that he featured more than his slider this fall to go along with a solid changeup. He might be a top-of-the-first-round bat, with some seeing him more as a second-rounder on the mound.”

MLB Pipeline

This is high praise for Caglianone at the plate, while they temper expectations for him on the mound. If he fell to the White Sox at 5 overall, this would be the best possible pick they could make. I’m not sure if they would keep him as a two way player, but I think it should be something that they should consider. It has not worked in the past for two way college players, but Caglianone could be different. If he’s there at 5, you sprint up to the podium and figure out the rest later.