In the midst of a career-best year at the plate, Clement currently has career highs in batting average (.287) and slugging percentage (.415) while adding nine home runs and 38 RBIs, earning his first all-star appearance. <\/p>\n
The Rochester, N.Y., native also has a penchant for running out plays on the bases, pushing through injuries, and making the extra effort on defensive plays. <\/p>\n
He most recently made a game-saving play against the Chicago Cubs on Thursday, leaping to catch a soft liner to centre that otherwise would have been a walk-off base hit. <\/p>\n
After six years in the minors and another three bouncing up and down between affiliated ball and MLB, he received his first full-time playing opportunity with the Blue Jays in 2024 at age 28 and ran with it. <\/p>\n
Toronto acquired Clement after he was released by the then Oakland Athletics \u2014 the last-placed team in the American League at the time \u2014 and signed him to a minor league contract ahead of the 2023 season. <\/p>\n
He didn’t break through right away, spending the majority of the year with the triple-A Buffalo Bisons, but posted a .348\/.401\/.544 slash line in the minors to go along with 11 homers and 58 RBIs, and hit for a .380 average and .885 OPS in his brief time with the Blue Jays that season. <\/p>\n
But it wasn’t until 2025 that Clement truly made a name for himself, playing through a fractured finger and stitches in his shin as he helped the Blue Jays make the World Series with an MLB-record 30 hits in the post-season. <\/p>\n
His 22 defensive runs saved in 2025 also tied for the MLB lead with Cleveland Guardians outfielder Steven Kwan. He was a Gold Glove finalist at both third base and as a utility player, but ultimately didn’t win either award. <\/p>\n
Clement currently has two years of arbitration eligibility remaining and isn’t due to hit free agency until the 2029 season. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the midst of a career-best year at the plate, Clement currently has career highs in batting average…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":849614,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-849613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=849613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/849614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}