Florida Gators' Jac Caglianone does Shohei Ohtani impression at Men's College World Series - ESPN

JAC CAGLIANONE WAS a freshman in high school in 2018 when Shohei Ohtani arrived in Major League Baseball. Like so many, the 15-year-old Caglianone marveled at Ohtani's ability to hit tape-measure home runs on the same day he threw 100 mph fastballs. His fascination went beyond just gawking, though. Caglianone aspired to be Ohtani.

«I just thought it was the coolest thing ever,» he said. «I'd always done both, and it was something that I planned to do in college, and seeing the way his game grew and keeping a pretty close eye on him and studying all that he did — that was exactly who I wanted to be.»

Caglianone is 20 now and primed to make his Men's College World Series debut (Friday, 7 p.m. ET on ESPN) as a sophomore for a strong Florida Gators team. In a bracket loaded with future MLB stars, Caglianone might be the most fascinating. Of all the players in the past five years to attempt playing both ways, to embrace the mental and physical burden — to have the gall to think he can imitate Ohtani — none has done it as well as Caglianone in 2023.

In his first college season as a two-way player — Caglianone didn't pitch his freshman year as he recovered from Tommy John surgery — the 6-foot-5, 245-pound left-hander led the country with 31 home runs as a first baseman and regularly hit 99 mph with a fastball that carried him to a 3.78 ERA over 16 starts. While college baseball is populated with far more two-way players than pro ball, almost all of them leave behind such aspirations eventually, focusing on whichever position will best set them up to play professional baseball. Paul Skenes, the best two-way player in the country last year, ditched hitting after he transferred to LSU, where he flourished into the best pitcher in