A lot of mock drafts are leaning heavily toward the Chicago White Sox taking Florida Gators slugger Jac Caglianone with the No. 5 overall pick in the first round of tomorrow night's MLB Draft.
Caglianone is an impressive prospect who can hit the ball a country mile. The youngster crushed 33 home runs in 2023 and followed that up with 35 dingers in 2024. While he did that with an aluminum bat, he still took SEC pitching yard a lot, and that is impressive.
He is MLB Pipeline's third-best draft prospect who can pitch, but most scouts think he is not going to have a Shohei Ohtani-like impact on the mound. That is why the belief is he will transition to the field, so teams can take advantage of his power left-handed bat.
There are a lot of mocks pointing to him dropping to No. 5.
John Doyle of FutureStarSeries.com, Dan Zielinski III of the Baseball Prospect Journal, and Carlos Collazo of Baseball America all think the Sox are taking Caglianone.
Here is the thing with baseball mock drafts, they can be more accurate than say the NFL or NBA as MLB contracts for these prospects are already being negotiated. So if there are folks catching wind of the four teams ahead of the Sox going in a different direction and the Sox already have hosted Caglianone for a visit, it is pretty safe to assume that there is a good chance that is where the Sox front office is headed in.
Again, Caglianone is an impressive prospect and the Sox need power bats in their system. Plus, being a college hitter gives him a greater chance to get to the big leagues sooner.