I talked to Royals coaching legend Rusty Kuntz about Jac Caglianone’s transition to the outfield

Rusty Kuntz has been around the block. A full 70 years young, Kuntz played seven years in the big leagues in the 1980s before getting his first gig as a full-time MLB coach for the 1989 Seattle Mariners. Those Mariners, Royals announcer Ryan Lefebvre reminded me, were helmed by his father, Jim Lefebvre, and so those two go back three and a half decades.

Kuntz’s tenure with the Royals feels nearly as long. He joined the team for the 2008 season as the first base coach, and in the 17 years since he’s held titles like field instructor, special assistant, general manager of quality control, baserunning coordinator, outfield coordinator, and probably some more.

At the moment, though, Kuntz is being used like a sort of baseball skills whisperer, spending most of his time in the minor leagues—except for a conspicuous period a few weeks ago, where he was in Kansas City. “There’s an expiration date on Rusty,” JJ Picollo joked about Kuntz in a dugout interview on June 10th. “It’s good to have him, not only for Jac but for all of our outfielders.”

Of course, by “Jac,” Picollo was referring to one Jac Caglianone, who at the time was about to make his Kauffman Stadium debut. Caglianone had just wrapped up a press conference earlier that afternoon, and believe me when I say he is every bit as large of a human being as you think he is.

If you’re 6 foot 5 inches tall and 250 lbs like Caglianone is listed at, chances are you’re a pitcher or a first baseman. Those types of baseball players don’t usually play in the outfield if they play baseball at all, but the Royals had first base covered and had a void in the outfield. So, they decided to put Caglianone where his bat would matter most.

After JJ’s press conference, I noticed that Rusty was still in the dugout during batting practice. I took the opportunity to ask him about Caglianone’s transition to the outfield and how it was similar or different from the other infielders—namely Michael Massey and Jonathan India. What was the hardest part? What should we look out for?

Kuntz pointed out quickly that Caglianone’s transition to the outfield was by definition more difficult than that of middle infielders. “With Massey and India as primary second baseman, you get the athleticism that they’re used to going back on popups, covering that kind of range,” Kuntz said. “Where at first base, if you go back on a ball it’s usually in foul territory so you don’t get that many opportunities.”

“Well, now we’re asking [Caglianone] instead of going side to side, we’re asking him to go in and back, back being the hard part because that’s where the damage is. If you misread a ball and it goes over your head, it’s a double or triple.”

To Caglianone’s credit, he has already shown some good ability to go backward and forward. In the San Diego series, he cleanly tracked a hard hit ball by Jackson Merrill, taking a direct route and leaping over the fence to rob him of a two-run home run. Caglianone was clearly delighted; he jumped up with the ball in his hand before he realized that he should throw it back to the infield (no harm was done there).

Rusty’s claim to fame as a coach has to be the wildly successful transition of Alex Gordon from third base to the outfield. Gordon became the best defensive left fielder in baseball in part due to Rusty’s tutelage, but also in part because he had time to do so. Gordon spent a few months at Triple-A Omaha learning the outfield before coming back up to play that position for good. Caglianone played 14 games in the minors as an outfielder before being thrust into that position in the big leagues.

So I directly asked Rusty about it: how long does it take someone to get really comfortable with playing the outfield if they haven’t done it? Kuntz didn’t quite dodge the question, but he answered it in a way I didn’t expect. “Alex Gordon had already been in the big leagues,” Kuntz said. “He was a third baseman—well, he was a shortstop and moved to third. So he had that kind of athleticism as a shortstop and all we had to do was move him back 200 feet and all that athleticism came as a package.”

“Now, you’re adding another layer to Cags. He’s never been in the big leagues. Most of the time he’s never seen a fly ball or a line drive coming out of the this third deck. So this would be the first experience that he has at Kauffman.”

Again, to Caglianone’s credit, he has made quick adjustments. Just yesterday against the Rays, Caglianone swiftly made a nice diving catch to rob Jonathan Aranda of a hit right here in Kauffman Stadium.

It’s going to take a while before we will have enough of a sample size to judge his defensive statistics. Caglianone’s primary defensive limitation will be his sprint speed. Statcast reports that his sprint speed max is 26.1 feet per second. While that is not particularly quick—it’s at the 21st percentile overall—it’s in line with a few other right fielders like Juan Soto and Jarred Kelenic.

However, sprint speed is only one part of the equation. Alex Gordon wasn’t the fastest runner, either, but his depth perception and reaction time were excellent. More recently, we’ve seen Kyle Isbel excel in the outfield without blazing speed because of just those traits.

Fortunately for Caglianone, Kuntz seems to be pretty positive about him in that regard. “You got to remember; the only thing that outfield coaches can’t teach outfielders is perception,” Rusty said. “You either come with it or you don’t. So in his case, he’s doing a pretty good job reading the ball left, right, in, and back.”

“There are going to be balls that just keep carrying and are going to fool him. But that’s because he doesn’t have those kind of reps that you need. And once he gets those reps, then he’ll be okay.”