TOLEDO – I wasn’t planning to interview Max Clark, the Detroit Tigers’ top prospect.
It just kind of happened when we bumped into each other in the Toledo Mud Hens dugout as I waited for someone else.
“How you doing?” I asked and shook his hand.
He flashed a smile.
“Everything is going great,” he said.
Clark, a former Franklin High School star, had an excitement about him. Now, I know: Clark is typically outgoing, upbeat and excited just to be on a field. But this was a different level of excitement.
And he kept smiling as he started to give me an update that should excite Tigers fans. So, I figured I had to write about it because it explains how much he has grown in his short time playing for the Triple-A Mud Hens. How much he has learned, even if his batting average might not suggest it. And how his approach is developing.
From ‘scorching’ to ‘ice cold’
Clark, the No. 8 prospect in baseball according to MLB Pipeline, started off the season on a tremendous hot streak, hitting .421 in his first 10 games with a .500 on-base percentage.
“I started on top of the earth,” he said. “Just scorching. It was the best start of my career ever to start a year.”
Everything came easy to him.
But then, it all disappeared.
“I went ice cold,” he said. “I lost it a little bit.”
His batting average started to drop. Then he started chasing, and his average fell even worse. In his last 10 games in April, he went 5-for-38.
“I got cold, then I started chasing the result, and you can’t chase the result because you can’t control it,” he said. “When you try to control things, you just plummet.”
The crazy thing: He didn’t exactly know what was going wrong.
“The league figures you out,” he said. “I started hot, then the league figured me out. I couldn’t figure out what they knew about me, so I had to find it myself.”
Yes, he feels fortunate that he did that in the minor leagues. “That’s only gonna be larger in the big leagues,” he said. “They’re only gonna be better at it.”
Clark loves to do damage on pitches that are on the inner rail of the strike zone. As odd as it sounds, that’s where teams started to attack him − not exactly on the inner rail, but close enough to tempt him to swing yet not good enough for him to do any damage.
“They figure out this one weakness that you have, this minute weakness that they exploited in me,” he said. “I was chasing heaters on the inner edge and cutters in off the plate. Then I just get jammed.”
The results were maddening.
“Ground ball, ground ball, ground ball,” he said.
So, he had to change something. Adjusting to their adjustments. Still swinging at inside pitches. But not too far in.
“Just trying to find where the end range is, where I can still do damage and get the head out,” he said.
Of course, that was just the start.
There were other adjustments.
To start at-bats, pitchers went away from the fastball and started to throw him breaking balls or change ups on the first pitch.
“I wanted to ambush those, and I wasn’t very good at that,” he said. “I had to learn how to do that.”
All the while, he was growing. Maturing.
“You learn so much about yourself, what kind of hitter you are, what you need to do to have success, what you need to sit on,” he said.
He has also learned not to worry about results. He’s more focused on process and approach, something that Riley Greene talks about constantly.
Slowly, Clark started to see results.
Maybe not in his batting average. But in the underlying metrics.
Toledo played a series in Omaha, Neb., and Clark had an average exit velocity of 94 mph for the entire week.
“The highest mark of my career,” he said.
To Clark, that’s progress.
“The process has been really good the last two weeks because there was a time prior to that where I’d lost a little bit,” he said.
See that?
Now, he’s focusing on hard hit balls instead of hits. Process over stats. Approach over everything else. Not worrying about things he can’t control. That’s how MLB players talk − the successful ones, at least.
“These last three weeks have been on the uptrend, for sure,” he said. “Hitting lefties better this year, hitting hard, not necessarily slugging them yet, but the exit velos are way up, which is nice.”
After 38 games, he was hitting .269.
“I went ice cold, and then from ice cold it turned into a lot of like hard outs, like a lot of hard outs,” he said. “Now it’s like you’re seeing all of that kind of blend together and then produce again. So it’s just baseball. It’s the ups and downs of the game.”
More and more, he’s talking like a grizzled veteran. Even though he’s only 21 years old.
And yet, there are things he’s working on. He wants to be more selective at the plate and get on base more – he had just 18 walks in 39 games.
“I want to walk a little bit more,” he said. “My walks are down a little bit, and that’s just because when I was ice cold, I was trying to get hits, like I was pressing a little bit, trying to get hits rather than just sticking to my approach.”
See that? More growth. The ability to self correct. All of these are small yet vitally important milestones on the way to Detroit.
“Do you think your base running has improved?” I asked.
“Substantially, definitely more aggressive stealing bases,” he said.
He has been experimenting, trying to figure out how far he can take a lead off first base.
And yes, sometimes, that’s dangerous, trying to test the limits.
“I’ve actually gotten picked off a couple times because I’m getting too far off the base, which in my book, and most books, is a good thing ,” he said. “I’d rather be over aggressive here. I’m just trying to find out the middle ground between running and being stupid. Find the middle ground, and I feel like I’ve done a lot of that.”
More learning to do
While fans might clamor to move up prospects, especially when the MLB offense is struggling like it has, Clark has had the benefit of struggling and coming out of it on a smaller stage, not in the bright lights.
“I’m definitely glad I’m doing it here,” he said. “I’ll be honest, that’d be a really tough first assignment at the big leagues. So you know, you figure it out here and then take it with you.”
Gary Jones, the new Toledo manager, has been impressed with Clark, even though he’s only managed him for about a week.
“Well, 21 years old,” said Jones, who has replaced Gabe Alvarez, who was fired for a violation of club policy. “I love the kid. He’s got all the tools. He can run. He can swing the bat. He can throw, run the bases. I mean, it takes time for guys. Everybody’s timetable is different, you know what I’m saying? He’s 21 years old. If he gets to the big leagues, hopefully this year, he’ll have a long, long, long, long career. If he doesn’t get to the big leagues this year, he’s still gonna have a long career because he’s young enough.”
So, yes, even though Clark is growing, Jones is repeating a familiar refrain: Be patient with him.
“He’s coming, man,” Jones said. “We as an industry, sometimes with all our prospects, have a tendency to want to put the cart before the horse, but sometimes we just gotta let the horse lead, and we sit in the cart, and he’s gonna tell us when he’s ready.”
He’s getting closer. Of that I’m certain. Because now, he is starting to talk like a big leaguer. And the little things can sometimes go a long way.
Contact Jeff Seidel at jseidel@freepress.com or follow him @seideljeff.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Max Clark, a former Franklin star, is getting closer to a call up with Detroit Tigers
Reporting by Jeff Seidel, Detroit Free Press / Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
