Max Clark

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Peter Welch

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Apr 23, 2026, 12:38:59 PMApr 23
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Max Clark was 0-4 with a walk and a stolen base in Toledo's 8-2 win vs. Omaha in Toledo on Wednesday.  Clark is now hitting .318/.394/.471 in 99 plate appearances.  He still isn't striking out much, but isn't getting many hits to fall in lately.

Peter




Peter Welch

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Apr 30, 2026, 12:16:33 PMApr 30
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Max Clark has gone 5/34 in his last 9 games.  He's not striking out much and has been getting some bad batted ball luck.
He is hitting .301/.378/.437 with 1 homer in 119 plate appearances overall. 

Clark made a boneheaded error in CF on Tuesday on an easy pop fly.   The ball bounced off his glove and ended up costing the Mud Hens 3 runs.

Scott Harris has mentioned the Tigers want to see better defense from Clark in CF.

Peter

Tanvir Shaikh

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Apr 30, 2026, 12:23:24 PMApr 30
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On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 6:16 PM Peter Welch <pw...@hotmail.com> wrote:
Clark made a boneheaded error in CF on Tuesday on an easy pop fly.   The ball bounced off his glove and ended up costing the Mud Hens 3 runs.

How much jewelry was he wearing? 

Shawn Parker

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Apr 30, 2026, 1:17:07 PMApr 30
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Ooff... Still some learning to go..

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Peter Welch

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May 3, 2026, 6:41:23 PMMay 3
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Max Clark was 0-4 today in Toledo's 6-3 loss at Columbus.
Clark was 1-5 with a single on Saturday.

Clark is now hitting .276/.353/.397 (.750 OPS)  with 1 homer in 133 plate appearances.

Clark's numbers are in a nosedive since his hot start.   Looks like he's not ready for a call-up anytime soon.  He needs to show he can hit AAA pitching first.  He isn't anywhere near McGonigle's level.

Peter
From: detroit...@googlegroups.com <detroit...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Peter Welch <pw...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2026 12:16 PM
To: detroit...@googlegroups.com <detroit...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Max Clark
 
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Peter Welch

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May 20, 2026, 10:04:04 PM (7 days ago) May 20
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Max Clark is down to .694 OPS with a .269 batting average at Toledo.  I can't find much, but I wonder what Clark's issues are.  His K rate is only 15% so it's not like he's having trouble making contact, and his walk rate is 10%, which is decent.   He only has 1 homer so perhaps he's having trouble elevating the ball and hitting it on the ground too much.  He seems a long way off from Detroit.

Peter
Sent: Sunday, May 3, 2026 6:41 PM
To: detroit...@googlegroups.com <detroit...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: Max Clark
 

Michael W

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May 21, 2026, 4:16:36 PM (6 days ago) May 21
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I’m not worried about Clark yet.  It’s early still, and he’s not that far removed from A ball.  If he’s still struggling in July, i’ll start to worry.

Michael 

Peter Welch

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May 21, 2026, 8:14:41 PM (6 days ago) May 21
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I'm curious to know what his issues are.  He's not striking out a lot so contact isn't an issue.

Peter
From: detroit...@googlegroups.com <detroit...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Michael W <miw...@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2026 4:16 PM
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Subject: Re: Max Clark
 

Peter Welch

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May 22, 2026, 10:15:33 AM (5 days ago) May 22
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Clark was 2-5 with a double and an RBI last night for Toledo to put his OPS back over .700 at .703.

Peter
Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2026 8:14 PM

Paul Meloche

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May 22, 2026, 11:31:06 AM (5 days ago) May 22
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Clark actually rose in ESPN's recent prospect rankings since the previous time they published them (spring training?). Not sure how deep the writer dove into Clark's minutiae when creating the list, but the general gist is he's still very young and he's not exactly overmatched.

Paul Meloche

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May 22, 2026, 11:31:58 AM (5 days ago) May 22
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Oops, sorry for the double. Prospects like McGonigle and Griffin are no longer on the list so that assuredly contributed to Clark's ascent.

Peter Welch

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May 22, 2026, 12:04:22 PM (5 days ago) May 22
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Trying to find some advanced batted ball metrics for Clark in AAA.  His K rate is pretty low and his walk rate is decent, so he's not being overmatched.
Despite making a decent amount of contact, he's just had a harder time getting hits to fall in since his hot start, and he only has 1 homer.  
I don't think Clark was ever projected to be a big power hitter anyway.

I know there's also been talk about Clark needing to work on his defense in CF.  He's been prone to some mistakes and poor jumps out there.

As for the other "Max" in AAA, Max Anderson, I did see a post that one reason the Tigers have been hesitant to call up Anderson is because he's only hitting .167 against pitches 95+ mph.  He's having trouble hitting higher velocity, which doesn't bode well for Anderson trying to hit major league pitching.

Justyn-Henry Malloy had the same issue.  He had problems hitting higher velocity pitches in AAA and it showed when he was called up to the majors.

The Tigers' other top hitting prospect, SS Bryce Rainer, has a 42% strikeout rate in A-ball.  Rainer has been hitting better recently for West Michigan (.752 OPS) , but his K-rate is still very high.  He has a good walk rate (14%).  The scouting report on Rainer coming out of high school was that he did have some potential "swing and miss" in his approach.  He swings very hard.


Peter

From: Paul Meloche <meloc...@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, May 22, 2026 11:31 AM
To: Peter Welch <pw...@hotmail.com>
Cc: Detroit Tigers e-mail list <detroit...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: Max Clark
 

Tanvir Shaikh

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May 22, 2026, 12:18:13 PM (5 days ago) May 22
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On Fri, May 22, 2026 at 6:04 PM Peter Welch <pw...@hotmail.com> wrote:
The Tigers' other top hitting prospect, SS Bryce Rainer, has a 42% strikeout rate in A-ball.  Rainer has been hitting better recently for West Michigan (.752 OPS) , but his K-rate is still very high.  He has a good walk rate (14%).  The scouting report on Rainer coming out of high school was that he did have some potential "swing and miss" in his approach.  He swings very hard.

I don't remember if someone had posted it here, but in the midst of Rainer's struggles this season, he had hit an absolute bomb: one of the longest HRs of the year by anyone in the minors, if I recall. I think I saw the clip via Twitter.  Clearly the bat speed is there.  

-Tapu

Peter Welch

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May 22, 2026, 12:24:39 PM (5 days ago) May 22
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Yes, that was with Lakeland.  I think he hit another long bomb recently for West Michigan.  

Peter
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Sent: Friday, May 22, 2026 12:18 PM
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Peter Welch

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May 22, 2026, 3:29:59 PM (5 days ago) May 22
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Clark's average exit velocity is 88-mph with Toledo this season.  His percentage of balls hit 95-mph or harder (Hard-Hit %) is 35.4%.

Just for comparison's sake (with the caveat that it's MLB and not AAA), Kevin McGonigle's average exit velocity is 88.5-mph and hard-hit% is 37%.
Riley Greene's EV is 90.7 and hard-hit% is 48.8%.
Dillon Dingler's EV is 90.2 and hard-hit% is 49.6%

So, interestingly, Clark isn't that far off from how hard McGonigle is hitting the ball on average. 
Clark is way behind Greene and Dingler in how hard he hits the ball, but that's not surprising.

One difference between McGonigle and Clark is that Clark has a groundball % of 45.3%, whereas McGonigle is at 29.9%.  
So it looks like Clark is having trouble getting the ball in the air. 

Peter

Sent: Friday, May 22, 2026 12:04 PM

Peter Welch

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May 25, 2026, 5:17:44 PM (2 days ago) May 25
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Max Clark hit his 2nd homer of the season on Sunday for Toledo.
Clark has raised his OPS about 50 points in the past 6 games and has 3 multi-hit games in the past 6 games.  He's now hitting .272/.342/.400 in 202 plate appearances.

Peter

From: Peter Welch <pw...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Friday, May 22, 2026 3:29 PM
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