New level, new lessons: How Max Clark is enjoying every step of the journey

TOLEDO, Ohio — Whenever Max Clark is told he’ll be hitting leadoff, he goes right into researching who he’ll be facing.

Being a natural student of the game, the research comes easily for the 21-year-old.

Diving in to get to know Louisville right-hander Jose Acuna, Clark knew exactly what he wanted to study, knowing the blueprint of how Acuna mixes his pitches.

“What I like to do as a leadoff is go watch guys. especially guys who have a cutter or a secondary slider that’s very hard,” Clark said. “I’ll go see if they will use that for their first pitch of the game. What I found is (Acuna) loves to throw the changeup at the first pitch of the game.”

Clark’s first at-bat against Acuna went as predicted.

Being one who likes to swing early, Clark went back to his research, believing he’d see a first-pitch changeup.

Clark sat on it. Acuna threw the changeup—ball one.

Next came an ABS-challenged slider, overturning it for ball two.

Three more changeups, a swinging strike, and a misplaced slider later, and Clark was on base with a walk to start the night.

In the fourth inning, Clark found himself back in the changeup/slider combination, but he knew he’d see a fastball sooner than later.

“Going into the next at-bat, I was like, ‘He’s going to throw the heater eventually,” Clark said. “Then same thing. He gets to a three-two count, and hadn’t done the heater yet. I was like, “Okay, here it comes.” I just swung as hard as I physically could.”

Clark took a 91 MPH sinker 381 feet at 107 MPH off the bat for his tenth home run of the 2026 International League season.

“As soon as it left my bat, I was like, as long as it didn’t hit the top of the wall, I knew I flushed that one pretty good,” Clark said. “It felt good, especially anytime you can turn on a heater, for me, that means I’m in a good spot. Staying behind the ball, that’s always been my thing. The inner-half heater, if I’m smothering it to the second baseman, something’s wrong. So being able to get that lifted in the pull side, it was up and in, that’s a good pitch to hit. I was able to do damage on it.”

Always Looking to Improve

Clark entered his first Triple-A season with a goal to better understand his weaknesses.

While the offensive contact is audibly louder, Clark attributes it to the quality of the hard-hit balls.

“My ground ball percentage is drastically down, especially over the last, call it 100 plate appearances,” Clark said. “I’m running a 33% groundball rate, which is insanely low for me. That’s really low. My 107, 108, and 110’s (exit velocity) have turned from eight to 15 degrees into 15 to 30 degrees.

“That’s where I’m getting the homers.”

Splitting his 2025 regular season between High-A West Michigan and Double-A Erie, Clark had his share of home runs. A single-season career-high 14, to be exact.

Now, with more than half a season of Triple-A ball under his belt, Clark is seeing more of a difference in the way he’s hitting them, versus how hard he’s hitting them.

“I had a lot of clipped, well-spun homers last year where I didn’t necessarily hit the ball that, quote unquote, hard,” Clark said. “It was just 99 MPH at 30 degrees with perfect spin and it’s only gone if you pull it.

Now, the one I just hit was 107 MPH at 25 degrees. The one the other day was 104 MPH at 30 degrees. The ability to pull the ball, or not even just pull, but spray it everywhere, hit it hard and hit it higher, is where the differences come for me.”

In 2025, Clark was admittedly pleased with his exit velocities and hard-hit percentages, but the power wasn’t translating as well as it could be.

“A vast majority of those hard-hit balls were straight into the ground,” Clark said. “Not even like low line drives or one-hops through the infield. They were hitting before the plate and rolling.

Now, my misses are the weak, soft hits,” Clark said. “When I hit it, it is in the air either to somebody or for a base, it doesn’t matter. It’s cleaner quality of contact in terms of where it’s going.”

Since last season, Clark has added about 1.5 MPH to his average exit velocity, 5.3 percentage points to his hard-hit rate against pitch velocities of 95 MPH or higher and +5 degrees to his hard-hit launch angle.

With the average hard-hit launch angle ranging from 10-12 degrees, Clark’s 13-degree average in 2026 is demanding attention and for Clark, it’s all part of him being a self-professed “Statcast rat.”

Clark’s launch angle window, with the +5 degree adjustment, has allowed him to move away from ground balls, in turn shaving off nine percentage points from his ground ball rate from 2025.

“I mean, he’s always been a smart kid,” a National League scout said. “Every player needs polish in something. I think it speaks to his IQ that he understands that. Look at the numbers. He’s getting better. It’s kind of scary, if you think about it.”

For Clark, the deep dive into better understanding his weaknesses comes from the knowledge of the higher he climbs within the system, the more opposing pitchers will have ways to capitalize off of a miscalculation.

“I think (Triple-A) is the first level where guys don’t necessarily pitch to their strengths,” Clark said. “They pitch to your weakness. They definitely do that in the big leagues. That’s how they make their money. That’s how people keep their jobs. They’re going to find every single weakness you have and exploit it.

“I think that being able to just think and commit to a plan is the biggest part,” Clark said. “Especially at this level.”

Headed to the Big Leagues!

Early on Thursday morning, news broke that Clark, Just Baseball’s No. 7 prospect, is heading to the big leagues for his MLB debut. With the Tigers seven games under .500 and on the cusp of a transitional period, Clark should immediately become the club’s primary center fielder, with the hope being that once he gets a hold of the role, he never looks back.