When the team formerly known as the Oakland Athletics released Ernie Clement in March 2023, not many took notice. When the Blue Jays signed him to a minor league deal later that same month, the signing wasn’t met with much fanfare.

Up until that point in time, Clement had 312 big league plate appearances with a .204/.261/.264 slashline, good enough for a .525 OPS and 50 wRC+. The former Guardians fourth-rounder toiled in triple-A with the Buffalo Bisons for most of the 2023 season before getting a cup of coffee down the stretch and producing extremely well in 52 plate appearances (144 wRC+). The 2024 season served as Clement’s breakout of sorts as he played in a career high 139 games while putting a very respectable 2.2 fWAR thanks to his sparkling defense at the hot corner, helping solidify his roster spot for the foreseeable future. He even earned a Gold Glove nomination for his efforts.

Thus far in 2025, all Clement’s done is improve upon all facets of his game.

Posting up with a 2.5 fWAR, the Blue Jays’ Swiss-army knife is second on the team in fWAR and has already surpassed his 2024 output in 62 fewer games. How’s he doing it? At the plate.

Clement’s offensive WAR total from last year stood at a measly -2.3; this year it’s at 5.3.  What’s been the single biggest factor for Clement’s surge offensively from 2024 to 2025? His absolute destruction of left-handed pitching. The difference in production doesn’t even look real. You look at the numbers, and you know numbers don’t lie. Yet you still don’t think it’s real. Don’t believe me? Take a look for yourself

A jump in batting average by .200 points, a .300+ point jump in slugging, and an over .500 point jump in OPS. Utterly video game-like numbers. The only two hitters in baseball who’ve done more damage against left-handed pitching are a pair of Yankees, Aaron Judge and Paul Goldschmidt.

One key reason for the Rochester natives’ massive swing against lefties is very simple. He’s pulling the ball at roughly a 7% higher clip (39.8% in 2024 to 45.9% in 2025) and doing so in the air. When looking through Ernie’s batted ball data from last year to this, trying to see if there were any obvious differences, there was next to none. His bat speed is in the fourth percentile as it was last year; his hard-hit% went from the third percentile to fourth, his barrel% dropped by 1.6%, though he has added 1.5 MPH to his average exit velocity.

However, the Blue Jays’ utility man has turned into a lefty murderer, and firmly amongst the elite of the elite in that aspect too.

When it comes to players with this type of profile at the plate – don’t hit the ball hard, don’t draw walks, low-end bat speed – the expected stats will always tell you they’re due for regression, and that is also the case when it comes to Ernie Clement.

I don’t know how realistic it is to expect him to continue crushing lefties to the tune of a 236 wRC+. However, there are players who will constantly outperform their expected stats, mainly because they hit the ball at ideal launch angles and spray it around the diamond (Steven Kwan being the poster boy for this specific demographic), and Clement does both of those things extremely well.

His elite glove and super-utility profile will keep him in the big leagues for a long time, and if the results against southpaws – while regressing some – remain solidly above average, then you’re talking about a damn good baseball player.

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