Ernie Clement: Daulton Varsho Lite?
Everyday player Ernie has been one of the better surprises in 2024. He’s been the fourth most valuable position player by fwar, and third most by bwar, behind Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Daulton Varsho. When you think about Clement and Varsho, they feel worlds apart. Ones on the infield, ones in the outfield. One walks and strikeouts above league average and the other never does either. But when I watch them at the plate their plate appearances feel so similar: they’re looking to pull a home run just over the outfield wall, and any time they don’t pull a ball they feel like an automatic out.
Look at their batting stats on Thursday September 12th
On base:
EC: .288
DV: .293
Slugging:
EC: .423
DV: .407
Weighted on base:
EC: .304
DV: .304
wRC+
EC: 99
DV: 98
Kind of wild. The other big number is xwOBA where they differ, but both are well below average, Clement at .286 and Varsho at .265. Both are pretty awful numbers, but many smart people say those that pull fly balls will outperform their xwOBA. I think there’s more to look at on that but let’s just run with it.
Clement is up to 394 PAs and Varsho is up to 513 PAs. Clement has hit a pulled fly ball 42 times and Varsho 60 times. That’s 10.6% of the time for Clement and 11.6% for Varsho. If you add in pulled line drives Clement is at 20% and Varsho is at 17.9%. They differ on what they do in the other 80%~ of PAs, Clement walks and strikes out 11.2% of his PAs while Varsho does 36.1%.
They’re both two of the worst opposite and up the middle hitting players in baseball. Of qualified hitters by wRC+, Clement is the 9th worst and Varsho is 11th worst. Every time they don’t pull a ball it’s basically an out, or maybe a single. Clement has a .487 OPS on non pulled balls with a .054 ISO, Varsho dwarfs him with his own weighty .500 OPS that way, but with a little more power in the tune of a .128 ISO.
At the plate they’re both two players trying to ring out every drop of power they can get to. As a fan, they both have a ton of plate appearances which are non productive in search of power. That’s why they’re never going to be especially high ceiling offensive players, and neither need to be.
The true fun stuff about Varsho is his otherworldly outfield defence. He’s a guy who’s not close to the fastest player (but still fast) and he definitely doesn’t possess the hardest throwing arm but he is so good in spite of his physical traits. On the infield, it’s snuck up on people but Clement is the same, he plays on the left side of the Diamond with arm strength in the 34th percentile. While Varsho has moved up the defensive spectrum to full time centre, he used to split time in left, similar to Clement with third base and shortstop. I think Clement could be an excellent shortstop if need be but the opportunity is not there, as he’s basically the only third baseman in the organization.
This year, Varsho’s put up 16 OAA and 28 DRS in 1085.1 defensive innings. Clement’s put up 6 OAA and 15 DRS in 869.1 defensive innings on the infield (this includes 21 innings at second with zero OAA or DRS, if I felt like cooking the numbers more I’d take them out).
Lets put them into per 9 inning stats:
OAA
EC: 0.062 per 9 innings
DV: 0.132 per 9 innings
DRS
EC: 0.155 per 9 innings
DV: 0.232 per 9 innings
Another way to look at it is every 16~ games Clement accrues an OAA while Varsho does every seven and half games. By DRS Clement is one every six and half, Varsho four. Kind of makes Clement look like a bum next to Varsho huh? Varsho can do that to every defender really. Doesn’t change the fact I do think Clement is a really good fielder.
I decided to dive into this for a couple reason. One, it’s super fun to find similarities in juxtapositions. It’s classic writing. But beyond that, it’s about how to stomach the chance that Clement is the mostly everyday third baseman for next year. The off-season holds no potential third basemen, save for Alex Bregman and the terrifying contract that will accompany. The trade market looks just as bad. Ryan McMahon is maybe the only name but the Rockies operate in their own world, they’re maybe never trading him. He’s also just not that good.
Something else that points me to Clement being the option for third is what they did last off-season. Isiah Kiner-Falefa was brought in to play everyday. He was traded because Clement showed himself to be basically the same player. If the Jays were comfortable with everyday IKF, Clement doesn’t scare them.
Now Clement might get a few days off, but he’s really their only option and he’s making no money, something the team needs as they go and compete in 2025. Addison Barger isn’t a very good fielder at third. Guerrero is even worse. Orelvis Martinez just moved back to third and probably isn’t making the team out of spring training. Will Wagner will probably never see an inning there as his father Billy has a stronger arm than him at age 53. Maybe there’s a third baseman to be had at the deadline next year but it’s looking like Clement is all we got. If you can understand and accept Varsho, try and use that to accept Clement.