{"id":735310,"date":"2026-06-25T15:45:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T15:45:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/735310\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T15:45:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T15:45:14","slug":"royals-reacts-results-put-jac-in-the-derby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/735310\/","title":{"rendered":"Royals Reacts Results: Put Jac in the Derby!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the MLB. Throughout the year, we ask questions of the most plugged-in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.royalsreview.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kansas City Royals<\/a> fans and fans across the country. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smartsurvey.co.uk\/s\/0DWS6R\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up here<\/a> to participate in the weekly emailed surveys.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Earlier this week, we asked if y\u2019all wanted to watch Jac Caglianone play in the home run derby<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">I have to admit, I\u2019m surprised by these results. Almost all of the comments I saw on the poll were quite negative in one way or another toward Jac Caglianone participating, but perhaps I should take that as a sign that the comments aren\u2019t actually representative of much.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">In the end, not just a plurality, but a full majority of voters think Jac belongs in the Home Run Derby, hitting his hammers, jacks, and whatever other word play we can come up with to signify his home runs. A full 53%! And yeah, after this poll question went up, Jac had a two bomb night in Tampa Bay, including a mammoth shot that absolutely went further than the 444-foot estimate and line drive hit so hard that it cleared the centerfield fence before it could drop enough to stay in the park.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">31% of voters felt that while Jac might \u201cdeserve\u201d a trip to the derby, they hoped he wouldn\u2019t go. Most of you who voted that way fear that it would wreck his swing, I imagine. If he does get to participate, you can take solace in the fact that <a href=\"https:\/\/sabr.org\/journal\/article\/home-run-derby-curse-fact-or-fiction\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">every study<\/a> on <a href=\"https:\/\/go.skimresources.com\/?id=1025X1734621&amp;xs=1&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mlb.com%2Fnews%2Fhome-run-derby-curse-remains-a-myth\" rel=\"sponsored nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the subject<\/a> has debunked <a href=\"https:\/\/community.fangraphs.com\/we-were-wrong-about-the-home-run-derby-curse\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">this myth<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">16% of fans just don\u2019t think Jac would be one of the best possible contestants. And to those people, I submit the above highlight video. Watch those two bombs again and tell me the guy who can hit those doesn\u2019t have a place in the derby. At the very worst, Jac Caglianone deserves to go on the same merits that saw Oneil Cruz selected last year. He hits the absolute tar out of the ball on a regular basis, and there simply can\u2019t be eight more people in MLB who would be more fun to watch strut their stuff like that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Last year, MLB The Show developer Sony San Diego studios brought back an in-game prediction game that had been part of the series previous for the Home Run Derby. Players were encouraged to guess who would win the derby, who would hit the longest home run, who would hit the most home runs in a round, and which league would win the All-Star Game itself. Once I knew who was in the field, guessing who would hit the longest dinger was a no-brainer for me; it was always going to be Oneil Cruz. Cruz indeed hit the longest blast at an estimated 513 feet. Outside of maybe Giancarlo Stanton or Cruz again, Jac has the best chance among current MLB players to outdo that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">These survey results are sponsored by <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsbook.fanduel.com\/navigation\/mlb\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">FanDuel<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the MLB. Throughout the year, we ask questions&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":735311,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2387],"tags":[5,936,2123,55,77247,2596,2595,4,252,72937],"class_list":["post-735310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-kansas-city-royals","tag-baseball","tag-kansas","tag-kansas-city","tag-kansas-city-royals","tag-kansas-city-royals-discussion","tag-kansascity","tag-kansascityroyals","tag-mlb","tag-royals","tag-royals-review-question-of-the-day"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116811525244773201","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=735310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/735311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=735310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=735310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=735310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}