Lynn HenningThe Detroit News
Already, he is beginning to set limits that can’t in good conscience be busted — not if Max Clark wants to be focused more on baseball than on bonhomie.
But you can imagine the tussle for a 19-year-old man who likes pleasing his fans.
The West Michigan Whitecaps center fielder, last year’s third-overall pick in the 2023 MLB Draft, on game nights at home or away, can have anywhere from 50-100 or more people wanting his name etched on a baseball or scoresheet or whatever item a Max Clark autograph might, in their happy view, enhance.
“But after a rough game, it’s really not fun,” Clark said Saturday during a phone conversation, just before he headed to Day Air Ballpark for West Michigan’s game against the Dayton Dragons, which saw the Whitecaps lose, 8-7, after a ninth-inning walk-off run.
“I don’t want to just blow ‘em off. But some days after a loss, I don’t really like to sign then. I just feel like it’s kind of a bad representation.
“That’s where I kind of draw the line, even if I have a personal desire to be there for the fans.”
So, this is what most distresses him during a season when Clark has been about everything the Tigers had hoped their top 2024 draft grab would become in his first full season of professional baseball?
No. Not at all. Clark has had, even amid baseball’s bruising realities on the field and off, a thrilling 2024. He began the year at low-A Lakeland, was promoted along with draft mate Kevin McGonigle to West Michigan in early July, and has been on the same arc with the Whitecaps as before his ticket north was punched.
Clark had a .807 OPS in 73 games at Lakeland (.286/.386/.421). He has in 28 games with the Whitecaps a .818 OPS (.272/.362/.456). He has in just over a third as many games at West Michigan three homers compared with the seven slammed at Lakeland.
He does not turn 20 until Dec. 21.
“He’s had some really good offensive games,” said Whitecaps manager Tony Cappuccilli, who might be more impressed with Clark’s work on defense, joining with fellow speedster Seth Stephenson in left field to set up something of a firewall against balls getting between, or over, two-thirds of West Michigan’s outfield.
“He’s really good on communicating, which, for a young guy to come in and be able to lead our outfield, is better than you’d expect a young guy to do.
“Offensively, you can see he’s learning from his at-bats. It’s a challenge, dealing with not always getting results. You don’t have a positive at-bat and you’re supposed to learn from it, then go and play defense, and it’s a lot harder than people would give credit for.
“But he’s doing a good job of not letting one bad at-bat go into the next.”
Also, as Cappucculli noted, Clark has been making sure the happier hitting turns are more frequent, more on the line of Tuesday’s game at Dayton, when he had three hits, including a bases-loaded triple that busted open an 11-2 victory and gave Clark five RBIs on the night.
Clark says moving a link up the Tigers farm chain has been a dual gain.
Offensively, of course, the pitching is noticeably better. But so are his hitting skills as measured from early spring.
“The guys here execute better,” Clark said of high-A arms. “Overall, the shapes of the pitches and the velocities are about the same, but guys here don’t leave an 0-2 breaking ball over the middle. They bury it where you want to chase.
“The margins for error go from pretty high at (low-A) to pretty low. It’s taken me more time to learn to be more aggressive in the count. You see a lot more strikes here.”
As the percentage uptick in homers and extra-base hits confirms, Clark says he is getting stronger, even as the season has worn on. A swing change “to create more loft and turn” has been another boost.
Clark confirms also that, defensively, as Cappuccilli notes, his defense has advanced a grade.
And that Comerica Park-cousin known as LCMU Ballpark is, he insists, one of the reasons.
“LCMU is a graveyard for hitting,” Clark said, “but I feel on defense here, I can run and get anything, ‘cause it’s exactly like Comerica, with all that space.”
It isn’t only outfield acreage that has expanded — even beyond the vastness of Marchant Stadium/Publix Field’s at Lakeland, Fla. — since he came to Comstock Park.
It’s the crowds.
Games at Lakeland might, and in the Florida Coast League might consist of a friends and family count of 200 people, or fewer.
LCMU Park can draw 8,000-plus to a game. One can imagine the differences in workplace atmosphere, especially for a player a year out of high school. Especially when the Florida State League’s summer saunas have been vacated and more seasonal summer evenings cooled by Lake Michigan’s freshness are the rule.
“That’s the biggest difference here — the weather, and the fans who turn out for this team,” Clark said. “It’s incredible, honestly. Coming in, I knew they had big crowds, but when Kevin (McGonigle, shortstop, now healing from a broken hamate bone) and I talked, we said: ‘Cool, this is kind of our first taste of real professional baseball.’
“It’s awesome when you can show up every day, even if you’re down a bit, and suddenly you’re feeling great, because the crowd brings you all this adrenalin.”
Clark has had something of a unique fan club, even from his pre-draft days when he was finishing a marvelous stint at Franklin (Indiana) Community High and had a big social-media following.
Couple that with his celebrity draft status, and with a personality that might otherwise have made him quite the Hall of Fame salesman, and suddenly you have all those autograph hunters, some of which Clark already has learned (ouch) can be there for commercial reasons.
“Oh, man, I don’t know — at least 100 or 150,” he says of a typical night’s pre-game and post-game requests. “No matter where we go.
“There are a lot of kids, and they’re excited, and there’s a lot of actual Detroit fans. Every time we show up, even here at Dayton, there’s at least 50 waiting. And that’s awesome.
“Others are trying to sell (autographed items) on eBay. But the kids asking, or the guy with a Tigers shirt — you try and sign for every one of them.”
And that, as Clark acknowledges, not a bit grudgingly, goes with the territory.
He rather likes it. For a blond-haired, left-handed-swinging teen blessed with bountiful baseball gifts, this realm known as professional baseball is like gulping in the grace of a life that not many months ago was more a dream.
He agrees, as long as a tough loss doesn’t send a bad message, he can handle one more autograph request from a person whose night Max Clark just made.
Lynn Henning is a freelance writer and retired Detroit News sports reporter.
