Nick Ashbourne

For now, the Blue Jays need offense.

They need someone who can hit, and he is doing that well.

So I don't want to take too much air out of the balloon, but he's just an interesting player when it comes to his overall profile.

Ernie Clement is such an interesting player because he's simultaneously an absolute freak of nature.

He's someone who swings and makes contacts with pitches that other guys simply aren't capable of making contact with.

And he swings more than other guys and he walks less and he strikes out less.

Everything is in play with him and in a way that just isn't with other pitchers.

Sorry, with other hitters.

And then on the flip side, at the end of the season, you look up and he's basically league average offense.

His stats look the same at the end of every single year so far that he's been a regular player because it's relatively low on base due to the fact that he virtually never walks, relatively high average, and kind of middle of the pack to low slugging.

And that's what we've come to expect.

This season...

At the end of the day, if I had to bet on it, I'd say it's going to be pretty similar at the end of the day.

But I will say that right now, one thing that he's doing that's a little bit different is he's pulling the ball.

He's pulling the ball close to half the time.

That's a much higher rate than he's had in the past.

And you see him trying to get out and make contact with the ball in front of the plate.

And that's helpful for guys that don't have the amazing raw power.

If you don't have true raw power, and we saw it earlier in the year, even with Miles Straw, there was a lot of effort on his part to put the ball in the air and pull it.

And the Jays have had many of these guys, you know, Danny Jansen, Calvin Biggio, guys who didn't have amazing raw power, but the ball's in the air and I'm pulling it and we're going to get it over the fence that way because the wall is shorter when you pull it than when you put it in the middle of the field.