Blue Jays' fill-in shortstop Ernie Clement might be MLB's weirdest hitter

When the Toronto Blue Jays called up infielder Ernie Clement late last month, they were hoping for competence, but the 27-year-old has exceeded all reasonable expectations.

Clement enters the Blue Jays' off day Thursday hitting .410/.415/.564 in 41 plate appearances. While some of those numbers are luck-aided, his xwOBA of .353 still ranks fourth among Toronto hitters who've taken at least 20 trips to the plate.

The sample is small enough that it's tough to make confident predictions about where he goes from here, but for what it's worth, every FanGraphs projection system sees him as a below-average hitter going forward in 2023.

While those projections might seem harsh for a guy who's thriving and hit .339/.394/.533 at Triple-A, they are fair considering his career wRC+ at the MLB level is still 65 — and his minor-league track record is full of below-average offensive performances.

Clement is a difficult guy to pin down, as his recent production diverges so much from what he did earlier in his career, but one thing is clear: The man's style is unique.

Since the beginning of 2002 — the first year FanGraphs has plate discipline data — 11,428 hitter seasons have totalled at least 40 plate appearances. In that group, Clement's 2023 contact rate (91.4%) ranks 180th. That's very good but not a true outlier.

What makes the infielder different is his method for getting the bat on the ball. While most excellent contact hitters are relatively selective, Clement offers at just about everything.

He has swung at 56% of pitches overall and 50% of offerings outside the zone. Prior to 2023, no Blue Jays hitter in the past 20 seasons had swung at more than 47.1% of out-of-zone pitches — even in samples as low as 20 plate appearances.

It's extremely rare to see a guy who swings so indiscriminately have so much success making contact, as chasing outside the zone is a reliable recipe for whiffs.

If we go back to the previous massive group, there have been 398 seasons in which a hitter has managed a contact rate of 90% or better. Of those 398 seasons, just eight of them were produced by hitters who swung at at least 55% of the pitches they saw.

You can throw out three as analogues for Clement — 2009 Matt Kata, 2005 Toby Hall and 2008 Mike Sweeney — as they include out-of-zone swing rates below 40%. These hitters were aggressive in the zone but had some restraint outside it.

That leaves just five seasons since 2002 in which hitters mimicked Clement's current profile:

A.J. Pierzynski and Magneuris Sierra didn't chase nearly as much as Clement in their swing-happy seasons, which makes Willians Astudillo — particularly in 2021 — the closest comparable. The most stylistically similar hitter to the Blue Jays infielder is somehow the man affectionately known as "La Tortuga."

That comparison is fun, but it isn't entirely encouraging for Clement. The ability and inclination to make contact with just about every pitch is a double-edged sword, to say the least. Astudillo posted a 71 wRC+ in his 2021 season, and he's currently plying his trade as a part-time player in Japan.

Clement's approach has benefited him at times, as he has been able to turn pitches well outside the zone into hits when he falls behind in the count ...

... but it has also resulted in unnecessary outs when he chases pitches he won't be able to drive in favorable counts:

So far, that balance has gone in his favour, but the tables are likely to turn at some point.

We haven't seen enough of Clement to know if he'll keep up his extreme approach, but the fact that he posted an 8.2% walk rate and 4.9% strikeout rate at Triple-A suggests he's going to keep on hacking and putting the ball in play.

Over the long term, that doesn't seem likely to lead to the kind of results he's enjoying now, but the Blue Jays aren't exactly pencilling him in as a player to build around. Clement is simply a fill-in who's giving his team what it needs in a crucial stretch.

Most players who fit that description are guys who play the game much like the players they're replacing, just at a lower level. For better or for worse, Clement is something different entirely.