I’m very high on Max Clark. I think he’s going to be an excellent player here. I think in some ways, he got a bit of an unfair rap because a lot of Tiger fans wanted to try to take Wyatt Langford with that number three overall pick back in 2023. And I think it’s still fair that we argue the merits of that. Langford is going to be an excellent player at the big league level and already had a really good season in 2025, but I still believe in what Max Clark has to offer. I think we’ll see him at the big league level at some point in 2026, but he had sort of a frustrating start to things so far in spring training.
I wrote a piece about this last week; it really doesn’t mean much to me that Max Clark dropped a few balls in left field in a spring training game. A young player had a bad day. That’s something that every guy has to go through; it’s really no big deal. What is a bigger deal is what a spectacle it ended up becoming. Max Clark is a brand. You rarely see this in professional baseball. Usually, it’s not until guys break out to the big league level that we see them start to market themselves, but Max Clark is a different breed. On the night he was drafted, his father said that before a major league baseball team even selected him, Max Clark was in the top of 5% of all baseball players in terms of social media following. That’s unheard of for a guy who had yet to play a single minor league game.
Clark is going to be an exceptionally fun player, and for that reason, he’s probably going to end up being exceptionally polarizing as well. To me, baseball is a sport of individuality. Celebrate however you want, flip as many bats as you want. Come up with as many random handshakes as you want. Watch the WBC this year; the truth is, most professional baseball players across the world present themselves with much more flamboyance than American players do. Regardless of affiliation or what country you’re from, I’m all for any player expressing themselves as they so please. But we’ve seen over the last week how the media responded to Max Clark simply because he rocked a few chains while boofing some balls in the outfield. It's led to a lot of discourse.
The way Max Clark presents himself is unique; it also draws attention to himself. I think people are going to take that last statement as something of a negative, but I really don’t care. I don’t think it’s a negative. I think it’s just the truth. LeBron James is arguably the greatest basketball player of all time. When he does that thing with his hands and the chalk, where he collects the chalk and tosses it in the air, as he did in Cleveland, that draws attention to him; it’s cool, it has an aura, so nobody really cares, but it’s part of his routine.
Clark is the rare player who comes into an organization with a predetermined brand. Personally, I think that’s really exciting, and I also think that A.J. is a perfect manager to have in these situations. He’s already spoken highly of him. I don’t see A.J. being one of those managers who’s going to take Max Clark out of the game because he wore his socks too high. I think that one of the great mistakes that people make when talking about this sport is that certain rules and regulations are set in stone. Much like anything, baseball evolves. Baseball players can evolve and change over time. It would bother me in Clark’s case if I didn’t feel he was self-aware, but having had the chance to interview him and having also heard him talk on shows over the last few years, he strikes me as a guy who’s wise beyond his years. The bottom line is that Max Clark is ready for the smoke.