Sunday Notes: Kody Clemens Has Grown Into His Pop
Kody Clemens’s game is built around pop. Playing almost exclusively with Triple-A Toledo, the 25-year-old second baseman went deep 18 times last year in just 424 plate appearances. He knows what he brings to the table. Asked for a self-scouting report, Clemens began by saying he’s “grown to learn that a good part of my game is power.”
Born to a baseball family — his father is the seven-time Cy Young Award winner who shares his surname — Clemens grew up swinging from the left side. That was a matter of happenstance, not of design.
“It just came out that way,” explained Clemens, who is No. 21 on our Detroit Tigers Top Prospects list. “When I was young, my dad put a little bat in my hand and said, ‘Hey, hit the ball.’ I guess I stood up from the left side of the plate. It felt comfortable, so I kept swinging that way.”
The tutelage that followed was predictably based on the perspective of a pitcher. “The Rocket” primarily taught his three sons — Kacy and Koby have also played professionally — about attack plans and how to approach at bats. Mechanics were never much of a focus.
Kody is currently focused on finding the right balance between his bread-and-butter — pull-side power — and being a more well-rounded hitter. Drafted in the third round out of the University of Texas in 2018, the 6-foot, 195-lb. infielder slashed .351/.444/.726 in his final collegiate season, but he hasn’t come close to those lofty numbers since entering pro ball. His slash line at Toledo was a relatively pedestrian .247/.312/.466.
“My batting average has probably been below where it needs to be,” admitted Clemens, who matched his career mark last year. “At some point in the season I was in the upper .280s, but I kind of hit a little downward turn toward the end. One thing I’ve been working on is staying to the left side of the field, because of all the shifting that’s going on. I did really well with that in the first half, but then kind of got a little pull-happy later on in the season. But power is a big part of my game. That’s kind of where baseball has been for the past few years. Power stats are definitely valuable.”
That’s good news for Clemens and the Tigers. Middle infielders who provide pop while also playing solid defense are an asset for any team. His ceiling may not be particularly high, but the potential for Clemens to be a valuable role player is clearly there.
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RANDOM HITTER-PITCHER MATCHUPS
Mike Trout is 7 for 9 against Daniel Mengden.
Keon Broxton is 7 for 9 against Adam Wainwright.
Hunter Pence went 7 for 9 against Mark Buehrle.
Dustin Pedroia went 7 for 8 against Sidney Ponson.
Fred McGriff went 7 for 7 against Ryan Glynn.
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Left on the cutting-room floor from my recent conversation with 21-year-old Colton Cowser were his thoughts on fellow Baltimore Orioles outfield prospect Coby Mayo. I asked Cowser which of his teammates at Low-A Delmarva stood out the most.
“There were a lot of good guys,” said the Orioles 2021 first-round pick. “But Coby Mayo is kind of a monster. I don’t think he even knows how good he can be. He can hit the ball really hard, and he’s got a rocket for an arm. He’s also a good athlete for his size.”
Who showed the best pop in batting practice?
“The one who was most consistent with home runs in BP was probably Connor Norby,” Cowser said of the 2021 second-rounder. “But the most raw power was definitely Coby.”
Mayo, a 20-year-old fourth-round pick in 2020, is No. 6 on our Orioles Top Prospects list. The 21-year-old Norby is No. 13. Cowser is No. 4.
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Sign-stealing stretches back to the early days of baseball, and with very rare exceptions, the players involved have either taken advantage of it or simply kept their mouths shut. Al Worthington is one of those rare exceptions. I learned as much while reading Thom Henninger’s The Pride of Minnesota: The Twins in the Turbulent 1960s, which was published by Nebraska Press last spring.
Per Henninger’s book, Worthington — a Twins reliever from 1964-1969 — learned late in the 1959 season that his then-team, the San Francisco Giants, was stealing signs from the grandstand by use of binoculars and relaying them to the dugout. A devout Christian, Worthington complained to the manager and was subsequently traded to the Red Sox prior to the following season.
Worthington remained a man of conviction. Boston sold his contract to the Chicago White Sox with a month left in the 1960 season, and soon thereafter Worthington discovered that his new team was using a flashing light in the scoreboard to relay stolen signs to their batters. His complaints once again ignored, he left the team and went home (per Worthington’s SABR BioProject entry).
Worthington went on to finish his career with 75 wins, 111 saves, and a 3.39 ERA over 602 big-league appearances. He had a 2.62 ERA and 88 saves in his six seasons with the Twins.
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A quiz:
Pete Alonso hit a rookie-record 53 home runs in 2019, two years after Aaron Judge hit 52 in his first season. Which player had previously held the record for most home runs in his rookie season?
The answer can be found below.
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NEWS NOTES
The Detroit Tigers announced this week that Lou Whitaker’s No. 1 will be formally retired on August 6 prior to a game at Comerica Park. The should-be Hall of Famer will be the 11th Tiger to receive the honor. Alan Trammell’s No. 3 was retired in 2018.
Frank Herrmann has joined the Toronto Blue Jays organization and will be working across multiple departments, including scouting, player development, and baseball operations. A former MLB reliever who spent the last five seasons pitching in NPB, Herrmann was a guest on episode 948 of FanGraphs Audio in November.
Jim Riggleman has been hired to manage the independent Pioneer League’s Billings Mustangs. The 69-year-old will reportedly be first former MLB manager to hold that position in the Pioneer League, which was affiliated from 1939-2020.
Per Federal Baseball’s David Driver, former Washington Nationals pitching coach Paul Menhart will be joining Taiwan’s Wei Chuan Dragons as a pitching instructor.
John Sanders, whose big-league career comprised one game for the Kansas City Athletics in 1965, died earlier this month at age 76. A native of Grand Island, Nebraska who went on coach at the University of Nebraska, Sanders was 19 years old when he pinch-ran for Wayne Causey in an 11-4 loss to the Detroit Tigers.
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The answer to the quiz is Mark McGwire, who homered 49 times for the Oakland A’s in his 1987 rookie season.
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This past Friday’s episode of FanGraphs Audio was a treat for pitching nerds. The guest was Brian Garman, a Driveline-trained pitching coach who serves in that role for the Dayton Dragons, the High-A affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds. Among the many topics addressed was the relationship between velocity and command. More specifically, does the quality of command decrease with added velocity?
“I don’t necessarily agree with lower velocity being easier to command,” Garman said on the podcast. “I think a lot of what the industry has done is, we take these guys, we train them to go be maniacs; we want them to get strong, move fast and be explosive. Then we put them on the mound, and if a guy doesn’t dot up every pitch, all of a sudden people start to panic, and say. ’Hey, maybe we should take our foot off the gas a little bit. Take 2-3 mph off and just feel it. Command it that way’. Generally, what I’ve seen is that that backfires. It never goes as planned.
“I usually err on the side of speeding the guy up,” Garman continued. “Make him go faster. Get a radar gun out and ask him to throw harder. I think once you start to back a guy off, A: It becomes too mental, B: They’re searching — they’re trying to feel for something — rather than being instinctual, being the athletes they are. So, I think when you try to back a guy off, command actually gets worse. You’re better off just letting the body work at the rate that it wants to work. If we can just get the athlete to trust it, and kind of turn the brain off… now we have the groundwork. We have somewhere to start, a jumping off point.”
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Who was better, Andy Pettitte or CC Sabathia? I asked that question in a recent Twitter poll, and the results were equal parts predictable and surprising. The player I expected to garner more support did just that, but the margin was far wider than I would have imagined. Sabathia received 89% of the votes cast, while Pettitte got a paltry 11%.
Sabathia went 251-161 with a 116 ERA+, 3.78 FIP, and 66.5 WAR.
Pettitte went 256-153 with a 117 ERA+, a 3.74 FIP, and 68.2 WAR.
Those overall numbers represent a coin-flip difference, so Sabathia’s better sustained peak presumably held great sway with voters. Sabathia had six seasons with 5.0 or more WAR, and they came consecutively. Pettitte had four seasons with 5.0 or more WAR, and they came over a nine-year stretch. Sabathia’s high was 7.4, Pettitte’s was 7.2.
It seems unlikely that their October resumes were much of a factor. Sabathia threw 130-and-a-third postseason innings and went 10-7 with a 4.28 ERA. He pitched in just two World Series games, losing his only decision. Pettitte threw 276-and-two-thirds postseason innings and went 19-11 with a 3.81 ERA. He pitched in 13 World Series games, winning five of nine starts.
Was Sabathia, who had more All-Star berths and won a Cy Young Award, the better of the two pitchers? He probably was. Even so, his margin of victory in the poll is a little surprising.
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Sticking with polls, one from last Sunday merits mention. I asked how many teams should qualify for the MLB postseason, with the options being eight, 10, 12, or 14. The results were telling:
Of the 500-plus people who voted, 35.3% chose 10 teams, 34.9% opted for eight, 23% went with 12, and 6.7% opined there should be 14.
The current format comprises 10 teams, four fewer than MLB is reportedly negotiating for. More postseason teams means more postseason games, which means more revenue for owners. Money is the primary reason behind an expanded playoff structure.
As evidenced by the poll, fans want something very different. As well they should. Compromising the integrity of the game so that billionaire owners can fatten their pocketbooks is a bad idea for baseball. The regular season should matter.
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LINKS YOU’LL LIKE
Philadelphia Phillies prospect Daniel Brito is continuing to recover — with hopes of playing again, no less — after suffering a brain hemorrhage, then going into a month-long coma. Matt Gelb has the story at The Athletic (subscription required).
Travis Snider is retiring after 16 professional seasons. Shi Davidi talked to him for SportsNet Canada.
DNVR’s Patrick Lyons wrote about Charlie Blackmon’s legacy with the Colorado Rockies.
The High-A Lansing Lugnuts are honoring the Page Fence Giants, a prolific Black baseball team that called Adrian, Michigan home from 1885-1889. Stephanie Sheehan shared some of their history at MLB.com.
The Baseball Hall of Fame’s Bill Francis shared the tale of Shufflin’ Phil Douglas, an enigmatic New York Giants pitcher who in 1922 was banished from baseball after allegedly writing a letter.
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RANDOM FACTS AND STATS
Greg Maddux had 1,194 assists and was charged with 53 errors. Nolan Ryan had 547 assists and was charged with 90 errors.
Walter Johnson’s 547 hits are the most for a pitcher in MLB history. (A handful of his hits came as a pinch-hitter.)
Gene Stechschulte hit his only career home run in his first big-league plate appearance. A right-handed pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, Stechschulte did so as a pinch-hitter in an April 2001 game. He didn’t take the mound that day.
Luke Voit had 234 plate appearances and 22 home runs in 2020. Rabbit Maranville had 747 plate appearances and no home runs in 1922.
Hughie Jennings had 121 RBIs and no home runs for the Baltimore Orioles in 1896. Jennings had 51 HBPs that year, the most for a player in one season.
The San Francisco Giants acquired Ron Hunt from the Los Angeles Dodgers as part of a four-player trade on today’s date in 1968. A second baseman, Hunt led NL batters in HBPs in each of the next seven seasons. His 50 HBPs in 1971 is a modern-day record.
Players born on today’s date include Oad Swigart, a native of Archie, Missouri who pitched parts of two seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates In 1939, he posted a 4.44 ERA while allowing 27 hits and 14 runs. In 1940, he posted a 4.43 ERA while allowing 27 hits and 14 runs.
Also born on today’s date was Crazy Schmit, a pitcher, and occasional outfielder, who played for five teams from 1890-1901. Born Frederick M. Schmit, in Chicago, the southpaw went 2-17 with the 1899 Cleveland Spiders — a team that infamously finished 20-134 — on his way to a career record of 7-36.
A second Crazy Schmit note: Schmit and Bill Phillips each started 10 games for the 1890 Pittsburgh Alleghenys. Both went 1-9 with nine complete games. Schmit allowed 98 runs. Phillips allowed 97 runs.
Earlier this week I noticed that 1970s pitcher Marty Pattin had seasons where he went 10-10, 14-14, and 15-15. That got me wondering what the most seasons with double-digit wins and the same number of losses is, and it turns out that Pattin shares the record. Per Statcast (via SABR’s Jacob Pomrenke), the other pitchers with three such seasons are Mark Buehrle, Bullet Joe Bush, Doug Davis, Dave Goltz, Orel Hershiser, and Al Leiter.
David Laurila grew up in Michigan's Upper Peninsula and now writes about baseball from his home in Cambridge, Mass. He authored the Prospectus Q&A series at Baseball Prospectus from December 2006-May 2011 before being claimed off waivers by FanGraphs. He can be followed on Twitter @DavidLaurilaQA.
Didn’t Pete Alonso surpass McGuires rookie HR record?
Thanks for the heads up (author heaves large sigh). Correction made.
Does Kody Clemens play a decent 2B? He’s ranked 40 in the prospect writeups for defense. Also, was surprised to see nearly a 1 WAR season projected for him by ZiPS.
“ZiPS is a lot of fun; what you do in ZiPS just can’t be done!”
I wanted to return the postseason to 4 teams. 2 NL, 2 AL. There are 6 divisions, you say? The worst division winners stay home, says I. Move the Barves back to the NL West, too.
Because Atlanta is so far west?
Is this satire?
Somebody put on their bad idea jeans!
Alonso broke Aaron Judges record. Judge hit 52 in 2017, same year he was rookie of the year.
I don’t really understand why David keeps on being surprised that better players are judged by (his presumably statistically inclined and informed) fans as better players. If you were to ask whether 9 is a bigger number than 8, and 100% of people picked 9, would we say “but 9 is really so close to 8, it’s kind of a surprise so many people picked 8?”
I realize that Pettite and Sabathia aren’t exactly like 9 versus 8 in the same way that some of the other twitter polls were. But my point is that the interpretation of these polls is kind of flawed. If you asked, “rate CC Sabathia and Andy Pettite on a scale of 1-10” that would support a “distance between” interpretation. But I also would guess those scores would be a whole lot closer to each other.
But these players aren’t really objectively better or worse in the way that 9 is always objectively bigger than 8. Even with WAR, the error bars are huge.
It’s more like asking: “Who was the better president? Teddy Roosevelt or Harry Truman?” You can make an argument either way, and I would bet Truman wins just because he was more recent. But I would be surprised if it was 80-20.
WAR/whistlestop appearance versus WAR/war
The disconnect comes from the conflation of who was better with who had the better career.
It’s possible that both a recency bias and Pettite’s steroid connection swayed some votes too.
Regarding playoff teams, here are some possibilities:
1)
– expand to 32 teams
– four 8-team divisions
– a (at least intra-league, if we retain one) balanced schedule
– division winners, plus the next 6 best records (I’ll call them all wild cards for clarity) make it in
– 3 best wild cards get in to round 1
– 3 worst wild cards do round-robin to send 1 winner to round 1
– 4 wild cards play each other, top 2 go to round 2
– worst 2 division winners play 2 remaining wild cards
– top 2 division winners get a bye through to round 3, where they each play one winner from round 2
Now maybe that’s too much time off for division winners, or too much of an advantage for winning your division. Maybe it’s not enough of getting to see those best 2 teams in the playoffs.
So how about this:
2)
– expand to 32 teams
– four 8-team divisions
– a balanced schedule
– division winners, plus the next 8 best records make it in
– wild cards do round-robin to send 4 winners to round 1
– 4 division winners play 4 remaining wild cards (let division winners choose opponents, starting from best record chooses first)
Maybe that makes it too hard for a wild card, or demeans the value of the “play-in” round?
3)
– expand to 32 teams
– four 8-team divisions
– a balanced schedule
– division winners, plus the next 8 best records make it in
– 8 wild cards play each other to get to 4
– 4 wild card winners play 4 division winners, with division winners getting to pick opponent (by seeding) and division winners only need to win 1 of 3, while wild cards need to win 2 of 3.
Maybe not enough of an advantage for division winners?
4)
– expand to 32 teams
– four 8-team divisions
– a balanced schedule
– division winners, plus the next 6 best records make it in
– 6 wild cards play each other to get to 3
– 3 wild card winners play 3 worst division winners, with division winners getting to pick opponent (by seeding) and division winners only need to win 1 of 3, while wild cards need to win 2 of 3.
– best division winner gets a bye to next round, where they play with 3 winners from wild card vs. division winner round
Still a lot of time off for best division winner, though maybe the advantage of being one step away from the World Series is worth it?
5)
– expand to 32 teams
– eight 4-team divisions
– balanced schedule
– division winners plus 4 wild cards
– 4 wild cards play 4 worst division winners in round 1 (can do pick opponent or must win 2 of 3 if you want to give bigger benefit for winning division)
– best 4 division winners get bye to round 2
– top 4 division winners play winners from round 1 and playoffs proceed normally from there
I think I like #5 the best, honestly. Gives a big advantage for being top 4 division winner, but still gives wild cards a chance to move forward. Top 4 division winners only sit through 1 round, and there is no “round-robin” madness to wait for. Plus, every round will feel like a real playoff round, unlike some of the “play-in” stuff from #1 through 4.
I would also like to have the divisions be geographically compact, as much as is possible, even at the expense of rivalries.
AL West
Angels
Vegas?)
Padres
Dbacks
NL West
Dodgers
Giants
Mariners
A’s
AL Central
Guardians
Reds
Pirates
Blue Jays
NL Central
Rockies
Royals
Cardinals
Cubs
NL South
Rangers
Astros
Marlins
Braves
AL North
Twins
Brewers
Tigers
White Sox
AL East
Red Sox
Yankees
Rays (if they don’t move)
(Montreal?)
NL East
Phillies
Orioles
Nationals
Mets
Sabathia looks a lot better than Pettite with RA/9 WAR. 68.7 vs 61.6. Toss in way more 5+WAR years and he was clearly better.
The RA/7 and RA/5 gaps are also similarly large, at least a full elite 7+ WAR season ahead of Pettite – even drilling down to RA/3 is still a few WAR in CC’s favor.
One of the things that is poorly understood about ownership motivation for expanded playoffs is that their goal is to maximize revenue that doesn’t involve them splitting money with any partners (this is true for any issue in MLB). Players get paid a lot in the regular season, and not so much in the playoffs. So the owners aren’t interested in expanding the season to 180 games; that involves paying a lot of money to the players. They are interested in expanded playoffs; sure, they split the gate with the players but they keep all the television revenue, so it’s more take home for them.
Of course, playoff expansion only makes sense if the league expands. Collectively, fans do not want a situation where sub-.500 teams make the playoffs. It would be bad for the growth of the sport. The way around this is to add more teams. More teams would be a major net positive. Big-league baseball in more markets gives you more fans, more market share, better leverage in negotiations with television partners, etc. It’s also good for the players, since there will be more jobs. But if you add more teams, then you’re splitting more league-wide revenue with them–league-wide television deals and revenue sharing. Splitting it across an extra 2, 4, and 6 teams means less on a percentage basis for the owners. This is especially true since the new teams will be smaller-market clubs that will get revenue sharing from the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, Cubs, etc.
So yeah, there are a lot of things MLB could do that would be in the best interest of the game, and ensure its long term growth, but that’s not what they’re going to do. They’re going to try and squeeze as much money out of its existing market share as possible. It’s quite predictable and depressing. The Austin metro area grew by 33% in the last 10 years; Raleigh-Durham, San Antonio, Salt Lake City, and Nashville grew by something like 20%; Charlotte and Las Vegas by 15%. Vancouver and Montreal and Portland still exist. But the owners would rather not get in on growth.
Why does the new graphic for this column include a print newspaper – on a *website* dedicated to analytics, which can’t really be found in print newspapers! Might as well show a typewriter!
The newspaper design is about evoking the feeling of the Sunday tradition of having a relaxing morning with a cup of coffee and reading your favorite column in the Sunday paper. For a lot of people in this community, David’s column is that tradition in a more modern form.
I understand what it’s trying to evoke, but it’s such a legacy media mix of nostalgia and hoary cliche, like putting typewriters in Twitter avatars, or for that matter, legacy reporters tweeting out images of the print newspaper while inveighing – in 2022 – against the Internet and … yup, analytics. I would think Fangraphs would be more forward-looking in its art direction, or at least, given the content of David’s column, use an image illustrating the historic sweep of the game not just from the past but including the present.
I’m sorry this is happening to you.
If you’re a member you can turn off the pictures on the main page. Highly recommended.
The Daniel Brito story is an inspiration, thanks for sharing David!
Borne into my baseball fandom as a ’90’s Red Sox die-hard, I just can’t get past how Pettitte (or Bernie Williams) are outside of the HoF.
Thanks for keeping my baseball-brain stimulated every Sunday morning!
Bernie not enough peak, high empty batting average, non elite OBP, noodle for an arm in his last few years. Love Bernie the player and guitarist but not HOFer
The argument against Bernie is his appalling defense and relatively short peak.
In no way was he an empty batting average guy though. Routinely posted double digit walk rates, 4 .400+ OBP years, and 6 years of a 140 wRC+. This wasn’t some guy hitting .300/.320/.375
This led me to dive into Bernie’s BRef page, which led me to dive into the page of his closest comp, Paul O’Neill. It must be the only page that notes not only a player’s batting side (Left) and throwing side (Left), but also his kicking foot (also Left). Thank you for this easter egg, BRef.
I’m familiar with the argument keeping them out of the HOF- I meant this coming from watching them as the archrivals, as a kid, just dominating every team. It’s still hard to parse the reality that they’re fringe/on the outside!
Pettitte was a juicer, another reason to rank him lower than Sabathia.
And we’re supposed to believe that in an age of micro-cameras, transmitters, receivers, and high speed image processing, the stealing of signs doesn’t happen any more than it ever did (which was a lot). I’m willing to bet that a good 30-40% of teams’ differential hitting production comes from their superior ability at electronically stealing signs, or at least electronically assisted pitch tipping recognition. Possibly quite a bit more than that.
its easier to catch sign stealers as well
I’m giving Sabathia extra credit for not balking every time he threw to first base.
CC also had that heroic stretch/narrative where he single-handed carried a team into the playoff.
I don’t know what year you were referring to here, but I seem to recall he was pitching on short rest constantly in 2008. He pitched 253 innings that year. The only guys this century who have pitched more than that in a single season are Randy Johnson, Curt Schilling, Roy Halladay, and Livian Hernandez.