Kacy Clemens, son of Roger, is blazing his own trail en route to MLB

Ian Hunter

Kacy Clemens, son of Roger, is blazing his own trail en route to MLB image

Roger Clemens was one of the most dominant, intimidating and controversial baseball players of baseball’s modern era. Breaking into the big leagues with the same surname as a two-time World Series Champion and seven-time Cy Young winner is a tough act to follow, but Kacy Clemens – the son of Roger - is forging his own path to MLB.

Clemens, who recently turned 23, plays first base for the Dunedin Blue Jays, but he was raised by one of the prolific starting pitchers over the last quarter century. During Clemens’ pre-collegiate days, scouts were intrigued at his potential to pitch like his Cy Young award-winning father.

“Coming out of high school, I was highly recruited as a pitcher, but also as a two-way guy with the potential to be a left-handed bat in the lineup. Everybody saw my mechanics on the mound and they were so intrigued because they looked like my dad’s.”

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With the Texas Longhorns, he was the team’s esteemed Saturday starter and Clemens lived up to his father’s namesake as one of Texas' most impressive pitchers. During his college sophomore season, he was exclusively a pitcher, but close to the end of the season, he tore his right labrum and required surgery. That was the beginning of the end of his career as a pitcher.

One door closed for Clemens as a pitcher, another opportunity opened up for him to become a position player at the beginning of 2014. He wouldn’t be a force on the mound anymore; instead, he rebuilt himself as a defensive-minded first baseman.

“I couldn’t hit or throw the first fall of my freshman year, so all I did was take 150 ground balls a day because that’s all I could do. I got really good defensively at first base and that’s how I earned my spot into the lineup as a freshman.“

Two aspects of the game where Clemens feels he has the most control: his ability to get on base and his ability to defend his position. Out of all the facets of his game, Clemens says he takes the most pride in his defense. It’s a skill he’s honed and crafted since transitioning to an everyday position player. Clemens is especially sharp with his glove, as evidenced by his stellar .997 minor league fielding percentage and the three lone errors he’s committed across three levels of pro ball since 2017.

First base is a position which appears easy to play, but Clemens says it’s anything but. It hearkens back to the famous scene from the film “Moneyball” in which Billy Beane tries to convince Scott Hatteberg to play first base. “It’s not that hard, Scott. Tell ‘em, Wash”. Ron Washington’s character rebukes to Beane, “It’s incredibly hard.”

Clemens would surely side with Washington’s character in this case. He wants to dispel the myth that first base is one of the easiest positions on the diamond and that’s simply because it looks easy.

“I hate it when people say ‘he’s not very athletic, but I think his bat’s good enough. Let’s just throw him at first base,'" Clemens said. "When you have a good first baseman, you can make bad infields look good. And when you have a bad first baseman, you can make good infields look really bad. …

“I take a lot of pride in helping my teammates out, picking them up when they have bad throws, covering as much ground as I can for the pitcher.”

While playing defense came naturally to Clemens, he worked tirelessly at his approach at the plate. Having a game plan when stepping into the batter’s box; doing their homework on opposing pitchers and taking the temperature of the in-game situation. For the most part, if a hitter checks all those boxes, they set themselves up for a productive plate appearance.

 

Second half ready...⌛️🤓 #gogglegang

A post shared by Kacy Clemens (@kacyclemens) on

The key to Clemens’ approach is simple; a base — whether it’s earned by a single or a walk — is all the same in his universe. 

“I’m just trying to put the ball in play. I try not to give away any at-bats," Clemens said. "That’s my goal — I’m not giving away this at bat. If I can draw a walk, I’m fired up because a walk is as good as a single.”

Clemens is already well-traveled in his minor-league career. Already playing his third level of pro ball since being drafted by the Blue Jays in 2017, he’s noticed the differences between minor league tiers. 

Clemens quickly realized that pitchers work much differently in High-A than Single-A. Where patterns were easy to establish against pitchers at the lower level, he says they’re much more unpredictable in High-A. Where a hitter might see many one-note pitchers in Single-A, hitters encounter those pitchers far less frequently as they progress up the ranks. In addition to that, Clemens feels that pitchers in High-A and above have the ability to command their secondary pitches and thrown them for strikes, which makes hitters like Clemens adjust their approach.

“The biggest difference other than the weather has probably been the consistency with the pitching. A lot more guys can command their fastball a little bit better. They can start you off with offspeed pitches for strikes," Clemens said. “They’re normally attacking you, getting ahead. One thing that stood out is a lot of guys in this league can throw about 95 mph. …

“When a guy can command a slider in any count, it keeps you off-balance. Whereas in the lower leagues, if you get in a hitter’s count and you’re facing a pitcher who can’t command his offspeed, you can absolutely sit dead-red fastball. You can exploit that. In this league, there are a bunch of really good pitchers, so they can throw you whatever they want in any count, so you just have to be able to react.”

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Hitting comes with its ebbs and flows, but Clemens recognizes his defensive play is constant and doesn’t waver throughout the season. Baseball tends to be a fickle sport based around failure, but defense is the one thing a player can take hold of.

“Baseball will drive you crazy with everything you can’t control. Defense, you can absolutely control that. You can control being on time, getting a good first step, getting a good jump on the ball, picking up your teammates. That’s my favorite thing to do; if you get a tough pick and you dig it out, that’s such a good feeling.

"Your teammates are pumped you did that and you’re pumped you did it for them.”

When life hands you Clemens…

Clemens began the 2018 season with the Lansing Lugnuts and was quickly promoted to High-A Dunedin, something which took him by surprise.

The promotion was mostly due to his production at the plate: Clemens walked more than he struck out (25 walks to 22 strikeouts). One of his goals for the 2018 season was to eventually ascend to Dunedin, but Clemens wasn’t expecting to be promoted so soon.

“I knew I was playing well, I just didn’t know how long I’d have to play well for before they called me up. It was kind of an early call-up, so it did surprise me.”

Something Clemens didn’t anticipate this year; having to pack up his belongings in Lansing and move everything down to Florida so early in the season. When it came time to recruit some movers, he had some help from his father Roger, who flew up from the family’s home in Houston and helped Kacy get settled in with his new home in Lansing.

Then the Clemens clan packed it all up again and relocated to Dunedin the following week.

“My dad came up for a week and helped set me up with my whole apartment. Then he was like ‘Alright kid, we shipped your car, it just got here, keep getting after it, keep swinging it, I’ll see you in a couple of weeks.’”

The following day, Cesar Martin — Clemens’ manager with the Lugnuts — brought him into the manager's office and told Clemens he was going to Dunedin.

“I had to call my dad and say ‘Hey dad, I know we just set up this whole apartment, but we have to move it to Florida now’. He was fired up. He said ‘that’s a good problem to have.’ He flew back to Lansing when I got to Florida, packed my whole apartment and my car and took a two-day trip driving it down to Dunedin.”

The Clemens lessons

Growing up around the game of baseball and having an MLB superstar as a father, Clemens is privy to baseball knowledge that other players aren’t. Knowing what to do and expect in certain situations is one advantage Clemens has over other prospects. Clemens is still learning, but at 23 years old, he has a wealth of baseball knowledge to draw from.

“One thing that I’m so grateful of is my dad taught me how to play the game the right way, and I have a very high baseball IQ because of that” Clemens said. “Just being around the game so long, being around the clubhouse, I was prepared because I kind of knew what it looked like to be a big leaguer in the clubhouse, how to treat people the right way, how to be a good teammate.”

Being raised as the son of a seven-time Cy Young award-winner, Clemens recognizes there are expectations lauded upon him because of his lineage. Roger doesn’t set unrealistic expectations for his son, either; he offers one important lesson.

“My dad says ‘I don’t care if you hit .400 with 40 home runs and 100 RBIs, I don’t care about any of that; all I want you to do is be a good teammate.’ That’s the biggest thing my dad puts on me.”

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Earlier this year, Kacy posted a photo on his Twitter feed which was a side-by-side of a photo the family had taken during Blue Jays Spring Training when he was a toddler. Kacy was carrying his father’s bag as Roger took to the field during Blue Jays Spring Training in 1998. 20 years later, the two got together and recreated the photo for old times' sake — this time with Kacy as the Blue Jay.

“It kind of just happened spontaneously," Clemens said. "My mom and my dad were in Dunedin the week after I got called up and we drove by the park, my Dad was dropping me off at the field. He reminded me that was the field where we took that picture when I was 3 years old — I forgot it was the backfield.

"So, I said ‘come on, we’ve got some time, let’s put some clothes on and try to recreate this photo. I think it would be sweet.’”

The nostalgia trip didn't end there: the following weekend featured a few special moments for the Clemens family. On Mother’s Day, Kacy hit his first Florida State League home run for the Dunedin Blue Jays with his mother, Debbie, in the stands. Roger was in the team’s radio booth at the time and helped provide some commentary.

“They were throwing him changeup behind and he finally got him a fastball and he stayed through the middle of the field. I’m talking like I’m a hitting coach now.”

The memories of his father playing in Toronto continued to rush back to him: Kacy recalled the times he eagerly anticipated the final out of the game because that meant their dad was off work.

“We couldn’t wait for the game to be over because then he’d take us out to center field and we’d hit wiffle balls over the center field wall and we’d think we were hitting home runs out of Skydome, which was super cool.”

To this day, Clemens still finds it a little surreal that people get starstruck by his father. After all, to Kacy he’s just “Dad”, but to others Roger is “The Rocket." Kacy occasionally has to broker deals to get autographs for his reluctant friends or teammates, but he assures them his dad is just like any other father.

“It’s almost weird when my teammates get starstruck when they see him. I’m like ‘dude, he’s this big teddy bear and funny guy. I know you’ve seen him being really intimidating and fierce competitor, but I promise you he’s the biggest, sweetest teddy bear of all time if you get to know him.’”

Roger had an otherworldly career and sits third all time among strikeouts for a pitcher. There is one thing that Kacy says he has the opportunity to be better than his dad in.

“Being a hitter, hopefully if I make it to the big leagues and I hit a home run. I can say I’m better at something than my dad.”

Ian Hunter