Arizona Fall League Notes: Are Jac Caglianone’s Struggles a Concern?

Here come another batch of Arizona Fall League notes, and it is very power-hitter heavy! As expected, offense has been plentiful through the first two weeks of the season, making it even more important to dive into the finer things; whether that be data, mechanics, or other relevant areas of improvement.

Miami’s Kemp Alderman Flashes 80-Grade Raw Power

Marlins 2023 second round pick Kemp Alderman turned a lot of heads as an amateur prospect with his gaudy batted ball data, which translated into a slugging percentage north of .700 in his draft year at Ole Miss. Since entering pro ball, the corner outfielder has struggled to tap into his top-of-the-scale raw pop, hitting just nine home runs in 100 games between Low-A and High-A.

In just eight Arizona Fall League games, Alderman has mashed six home runs, including a 119.5 MPH blast, the hardest hit ball of the Statcast era in the Arizona Fall League. The elements in Arizona undoubtedly facilitate offensive output, but Alderman’s lack of slug was more a result of his 52% ground ball rate paired with an overly aggressive approach. It’s a small sample size, but in the early going, Alderman has been able to get the ball in the air more, reaping the rewards by hitting more home runs in his eight AFL games than he had in the entire second half of the MiLB season.

There is definitely rare power to dream on, but a lot of things will likely need to go right for Alderman to get into that power with any consistency at the highest level. With the gargantuan strength comes stiffness that challenges his ability to adjust to pitches, creating plenty of hurdles against secondary offerings. But, to just see the 22-year-old flash what he is capable of after such a slow start to his professional career is encouraging as Alderman readies himself for a challenging Double-A Southern League next season.

The Cubs’ Jonathon Long Continues to Mash

A somewhat undersized first baseman, the Cubs were intrigued enough by the bat of Long, grabbing him in the ninth round of the 2023 draft out of Long Beach State. He has essentially hit from the moment he entered pro ball, posting a 129 wRC+ between Low-A and High-A before kicking things into another gear in his 46 Double-A games in Tennessee, where he posted a ridiculous 189 wRC+.

It’s a really simple operation in the box, starting upright with almost no stride and minimal weight shift. Despite such nonchalant moves and a relatively standard frame, Long generates ample impact through his quick, compact swing. He ran a 90th percentile exit velocity of 106 MPH through the regular season with a 48% Hard Hit rate. Long’s pitch recognition was particularly impressive, helping him get his best swing off at a high clip against secondaries as well.

He looks like he has a shot to fill a big league role with his bat, but it seems as though the Cubs are trying to figure out his long-term defensive home. While he has continued to see reps at third base, he looked quite unnatural there, getting eaten up by hops with an arm action that is not conducive to success at the position. Long also got reps in left field during the regular season and while the actions are a little shaky, he actually tracks the ball decently well and covers enough ground to potentially get by out there. If the Cubs want to keep Long from the first base only profile, left field may be his best shot.

The Dodgers’ Eriq Swan May Be Finding the Zone

A fourth round pick out of Middle Tennessee State by the Dodgers in 2023, Swan was a classic example of drafting the “stuff” and not the numbers. He stands at 6-foot-6, 220 pounds and averaged 98 MPH with his fastball. But in his 61 innings of work in Conference USA, Swan yielded a 6.49 ERA while walking nearly 16% of opposing batters. The command issues only marginally improved in Swan’s first pro season, handing out free passes at a 13% clip.

When I caught Swan’s appearances, I expected to see high-octane stuff sprayed a bit sporadically, but he looked like a completely different pitcher in his two AFL starts, striking out eight against zero walks in his six innings of work. Of course it’s a small sample size, but the last time Swan pitched six consecutive innings without a walk was against St. Bonaventure in February of 2023.

Swan’s best pitch is his slider in the upper 80s that he will manipulate into a shorter, harder cutterish pitch in the low 90s. When he is able to establish his fastball, the slide plays up from there with the gyro action off of it from his naturally short arm release that is naturally still high given his height. Of the 83 pitches he has thrown in the AFL, 58 have landed for strikes (70%), while even showing a decent feel for his changeup.

Swan’s fastball and slider combination should give him the fallback of a leverage relief, but all indications point towards the Dodgers developing the tantalizing arm as a starter. If he continues to improve in the strike throwing department, he will be given plenty of runway in the rotation.

Kansas City’s Jac Caglianone’s Frustrating At-Bats

It’s probably fair to preface with the fact that it has been a gauntlet of a year for Caglianone, as the No. 6 overall selection in the 2024 MLB Draft is the only player from his class participating in the Arizona Fall League. Caglianone led the Florida Gators to the College World Series and then played another 31 High-A games for Quad Cities before shipping out to Surprise. Considering he was pitching and hitting at the University of Florida, it’s likely that Cags is feeling some fatigue as we wind down October.

All that being said, Caglianone’s at-bats continue to be a frustrating watch. I say frustrating because the talent is abundantly evident; Caglianone is 6-foot-5, 250 pounds of muscle, and possesses legitimate 80-grade raw pop with decent contact rates. The challenge is the fact that he undermines his ability with poor pitch recognition and a hyper-aggressive approach.

His 40%+ chase rate as an amateur was well-documented, but he crushed just about everything he saw, so the hope is that as he faces some expected adversity, he may be able to rein things in some. The more at-bats I watch, the more concerned I am that Caglianone’s high swing rate is a product of poor pitch recognition more than a talented hitter being in swing mode.

His swing path is also somewhat downhill, meaning he needs to catch the ball further out front to get it up in the air. The desire to make contact so far out in front of the plate may be what’s contributing to his high swing rates, as he needs to get things going earlier, giving himself less time to recognize the pitch. It’s still incredibly early in the pro career of Caglianone, but the warts in his offensive game were evident.

By the time the Fall League wraps up, the 21-year-old first baseman will have roughly 50 pro games to look back on and apply to his offseason work. It will be fascinating to see if he makes any adjustments heading into 2025. Caglianone offers as much power upside as any bat in the Minor Leagues, but there’s going to need to be some tweaks.

The Giants Should Not Rush Bryce Eldridge

It was surprising to see how quickly the Giants pushed their 2023 first round pick through the Minor Leagues in his age-19 season. The 6-foot-7 first baseman undoubtedly earned multiple promotions, but Eldridge was still in Low-A at the end of June and found himself in Triple-A just 80 days later.

Just Baseball’s No. 56 prospect, Eldridge put up slightly above average numbers in Low-A before putting up a video game slash line in his 48 High-A games (.335/.442/.618), earning himself a deserved promotion to Double-A to close out the year. After playing just nine games as Richmond’s season closed out, the Giants promoted him to Sacramento for eight PCL games before assigning him to the Fall League.

Eldridge without a doubt expedited his timeline even in the eyes of the most conservative evaluators, but if the Giants are pushing the newly-turned 20-year-old with the idea of him potentially breaking camp with the big league squad, the team may be setting him up for failure.

I liked a lot of what I saw from Eldridge, and the ingredients are absolutely there to be a monster offensively as he gains more of a feel for his long, lanky frame. Good secondary stuff understandably challenged Eldridge during the season, posting a 55% contact rate against non-fastballs with a swinging strike rate north of 20%.

Similar to the point of Caglianone, Eldridge has had a near-unprecedented baseball year in terms of workload. In his first full pro campaign, Eldridge is slated to play north of 140 games, and he looked like he was swinging fatigued at points, making it difficult to draw anything substantial from his AFL campaign.

My read on Eldridge is that he is without a doubt ahead of his years offensively, especially for a hitter of his archetype. That said, he is still somewhat of a baby giraffe in the box, clearly still getting a feel for his body and ability to recognize pitches. Much of his success in 2024 came from a .338/.443/.644 slash line against fastballs, which is not a bad thing at all, but doesn’t scream, “Get me to the big leagues!”

With his long levers and developing approach, I think pushing Eldridge towards an early season call-up would be setting him up for failure. This is not an indictment on him as a prospect at all, as he will climb well within our top 50 prospects in our end-of-season update. It just probably makes sense to allow the former two-way player who just spent his first full baseball season of his life only hitting to develop a bit more before throwing him into the fire.