Jac Caglianone the latest in Plant High’s run of high-round draftees

Despite three trips to the final four since 2009, a state title continues to elude veteran Plant High School baseball coach Dennis Braun.

But atoning for his lack of hardware has been high draft picks. A half-dozen of them.

When record-setting University of Florida slugger (and Panthers alumnus) Jac Caglianone is chosen within the first few picks of next month’s Major League Baseball draft, he’ll become the sixth Plant product chosen in the first two rounds since 2009. No other bay area high school boasts more than two first- or second-round picks in that same span.

That Panthers list includes pitcher Mychal Givens (second round, 2009), outfielder Kyle Tucker (first round, 2015), pitcher Jake Woodford (competitive balance Round A, 2015), first baseman Pete Alonso (second round, 2016) and outfielder Connor Scott (first round, 2018).

“It’s all the things that people aren’t going to see that’s the real talent,” said Braun, who just wrapped up his 20th season at Plant. “Like, are you going to wake up at 7 o’clock in the morning every day and go to the weight room, which Jac did. And then are you going to come out here and are you going to really work to get better every day? And in a conversation that sounds easy, but it’s not easy to do.”

We did a brief Q&A with Braun, asking how his program manages to steadily produce such elite talent, his biggest draft surprise and what makes Caglianone so unique.

So how do you explain all these high draft picks produced by your program? (The group doesn’t include Panthers alumnus Preston Tucker, drafted by the Astros out of the University of Florida in the seventh round in 2012.)

I think part of it is, if you look at all those guys, they came in as men physically, and I think that’s where it starts. I mean, you’re not going to get drafted in the first round if you don’t look like a real man. So obviously I don’t do that part. I think as the years have gone by, it’s easier for me to sit a kid down like a Jac and those type of guys and say, ‘If you want to be that guy, these are the things you have to do if you want to be on that wall.’ We’ve got plenty of guys on our wall, and I think any kid that comes into our program wants to be on that wall.

What distinguishes Caglianone (who hit a UF-record 75 career home runs) from these other guys?

His brute strength. I mean, they’re not going to come into Plant any bigger and stronger than that kid. That’s a fact. Maybe (Kyle) Tucker can give him a run for his money, and Pete, but there aren’t many people that are going to hit it farther than Jac. And that was one thing we talked about. Jac’s the kind of kid that somebody else hits a home run, Jac wants to spend the rest of the night proving he can hit it farther. And I always tell him, ‘Jac, they just have to go over, they don’t have to go 600 feet all the time, even though you’ve got that ability.’

Of your guys drafted in the first two rounds, which was the biggest surprise?

I’d say probably Pete had to overcome more naysayers. I mean, Pete is naturally strong, and Pete could hit. Pete was not a very good fielder; he had to do a lot of work in that area. But to his strength, like most of these guys, he would take ground balls until I got tired of hitting them, and he’d still want more, and he’s done it his whole life. And I can remember somebody that was in the Mets brass telling me the year before he was (National League) Rookie of the Year, that he would never play in the big leagues because he can’t hit and he can’t field.

Of those high draft picks, which was the can’t-miss guy, the one you knew would go far?

That’s an easy one: Kyle Tucker. Kyle Tucker hasn’t missed a beat since the day I saw him in eighth grade. He was hitting balls into the trees when he was a little kid. When he walked in, people started nicknaming him Ted Williams. And I said, ‘Wait a minute here. If we’re going to label this guy Ted Williams, he can go nowhere but down.’ And I don’t know if you know it, but they did a movie on Ted Williams (a 2018 PBS documentary called “The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived”), and they asked for a minor-leaguer that looked and swung like Ted Williams, and Kyle Tucker played the part in the movie.

Plant pipeline

Since the 2009 MLB draft, Plant High has had five former Panthers players taken in the first two rounds, most of any bay area high school. They’re listed here (with overall selection and round in parentheses), along with the other local schools with multiple first- or second-round draft picks in that same span.

Plant

2009 RHP Mychal Givens, Orioles (54th, second round)

2015 OF Kyle Tucker, Astros (fifth, first round)

2015 RHP Jake Woodford, Cardinals (39th, competitive balance Round A)

2016 1B Pete Alonso, Mets (64th, second round)

2018 OF Connor Scott, Marlins (13th, first round)

Alonso

2011 RHP Jose Fernandez, Marlins (14th, first round)

2017 RHP Alex Faedo, Alonso, Tigers (18th, first round)*

Mitchell

2020 C Jackson Miller, Reds (65th, second round)

2023 SS Aidan Miller, Phillies (27th, first round)

Steinbrenner

2017 SS Kevin Merrell, A’s (33rd, competitive balance Round A)^

2020 RHP C.J. Van Eyk, Blue Jays (42nd, second round)+

*-drafted out of University of Florida

^-drafted out of USF

+-drafted out of FSU

Contact Joey Knight at jknight@tampabay.com. Follow @TBTimes_Bulls.