T-Rat Talk: Wes Clarke

He may be the Timber Rattlers’ most patient hitter, but when Timber Rattlers catcher and first baseman Wes Clarke is at his best he says it’s because he’s being aggressive.

“When I’m at the plate thinking I’m swinging every single pitch, no matter what, that’s when I have the most success. Sometimes when I struggle a little bit, it’s because I get a little bit less aggressive at the plate,” Clarke said.

When the Brewers selected Clarke in the tenth round of the 2021 draft they knew they were getting a hitter with significant power: Clarke tied for the NCAA lead with 23 home runs in 57 games in his junior season at South Carolina, where the SEC routinely provided him with some of the nation’s best collegiate competition. When he was drafted in 2021, four of the first 19 players selected were pitchers he had faced in conference play.

The Brewers also, however, knew they were getting a hitter with an advanced approach. Clarke walked about once every six plate appearances during his three seasons with the Gamecocks, which was more than 50% more often than the SEC average. His willingness to wait for a pitch was even more pronounced in two seasons of summer ball, as Clarke posted a .500 on-base percentage in the Valley Baseball League in 2019 and a .516 mark in the Coastal Plain League in 2021.

“If you think ‘I’m going to hit my pitch,’ which for me is low and in, I really like low and in, then you kind of shrink the zone,” Clarke said when asked about his plate discipline. “The zone is smaller than you think, so if you just look for a pitch that you can drive, anything else is most likely going to either be a ball, or if it’s early in the count and they throw one on the corner and you take it then whatever, look for a better one next time.”

That combination of power and patience made Clarke an extremely productive offensive player at the amateur level. He posted an on-base plus slugging over 1.000 in both college and summer league games across three years before being drafted, hitting 42 home runs in 629 plate appearances and drawing 110 walks.

His willingness to take a walk has continued to serve Clarke well at the professional level. He’s the Timber Rattlers’ leader with 51 walks on the season, accepting a free pass in more than 17% of his plate appearances. He’s in the top ten in the Midwest League in both walks drawn and walk rate, and he’s one of just two Rattlers (infielder Tyler Black is the other) to come to the plate at least 100 times and draw a walk more than 12% of the time.

Clarke cited his approach and patience as his point of pride from this season.

“Probably the plate discipline, because when I was in college I would swing at everything,” Clarke said.

When he swings the bat Clarke has also been part of some of the Timber Rattlers’ biggest moments. Two of his eight home runs on the season have been grand slams, including one in a game where the Rattlers came back from a 9-2 deficit to stun Quad Cities with a 10-9 win on April 20.

💣#GRANDSLAM! Wes Clarke sends one deep over the left-field wall for our first round-tripper at home this season #slamtown #tratnation @wesesame pic.twitter.com/sVrXnDC6qE

— Wisconsin Timber Rattlers (@TimberRattlers) April 20, 2022

The fact that Clarke’s collegiate experience prepared him for professional success is hardly a surprise. Fifteen of Clarke’s former college teammates have been drafted into professional baseball, including eight taken within the draft’s top 300 picks, and several more have caught on as undrafted free agents. Clarke’s contemporaries at South Carolina included two other players who have gone on to catch in affiliated baseball: Luke Berryhill was drafted in 2019 and has since reached the AA level in the Astros organization, and Colin Burgess recently signed his first professional contract with the Tigers.

As such, Clarke was behind the plate for just 24 games across his three seasons at South Carolina. He’s since caught 35 games in his first two professional seasons, where he’s already thrown out 19 would-be base stealers. Despite splitting time between catcher, first base and designated hitter, Clarke continues to warm up behind the plate every day.

“When I play first, I’ll warm up at catching and then do infield, and when I’m DH’ing I’ll do both, but when I catch I just warm up at catcher. It’s not too much different, aside from mentally just being prepared to catch nine innings,” Clarke said.

When he does get the opportunity to catch, Clarke said being behind the plate also helps him know that day’s strike zone as a batter.

“When you’re catching and you’ve caught three, four innings or whatever, you get to know, ‘is this umpire calling the strikes four inches off? Is he giving that high pitch? How low is he going?’ So you do get to understand it more when you’re a catcher, because you get to see way more pitches in the strike zone,” Clarke said.

Throughout his professional career Clarke has also had the opportunity to play under another longtime former catcher: Joe Ayrault, who managed Clarke with Carolina in 2021 before joining the Timber Rattlers in 2022, played 595 of his 626 professional games behind the plate.

“Joe is awesome. He’s been my only manager, but through all my years of baseball he’s my favorite coach/manager. He really understands baseball well, he understands how hard it is, and he really makes the game fun. It’s very light hearted in the locker rooms and in the dugout. So he’s awesome. I love him,” Clarke said.

While the winningest manager in Timber Rattlers history is a former infielder, it’s a longstanding baseball adage that catchers make the best managers. When asked if he believes that to be true, Clarke said “catchers make the best everything.”

“They’re the captain,” Clarke said. “They see everything that’s going on every day. So they get a better understanding. They’ve got to be locked in every pitch. Sometimes if you get like, an outfielder and they’re standing out there and they doze off, and then they’re fine, you know?”

2022 has already been one of the busiest seasons of Clarke’s baseball life: Between college and his professional debut season he played 83 games and logged 360 plate appearances last season and he’s at 73 and 297 this year with Wisconsin, respectively.

#Brewers 2021 Draft pick Wes Clarke (@wesesame) puts on a clinic for the @TimberRattlers:
3 H
2 HR
6 RBI pic.twitter.com/vXJK8sUfdC

— Minor League Baseball (@MiLB) June 12, 2022

“I feel like it’s been great. There’s a lot of getting used to playing every single day, which I feel like I have. There’s been a couple of ups and downs, but I feel like overall it’s been up, so I feel like it’s been a great season,” Clarke said.

With that workload, however, has come some challenges. Clarke has missed a few stretches this season to recover from various ailments, including a recent elbow issue.

“It’s a little tough mentally to just sit there and watch, but the smart thing to do is to make sure it’s fine before you go out there and make the injury worse,” Clarke said.

Clarke posted an on-base plus slugging above .700 in each of his first four seasons with the Rattlers, led by a .777 mark across 14 games in July. Once he’s ready to return to the field, he said his goal is to build upon that success in the season’s final weeks.

“My goal is to finish strong. First of all, I want to get my elbow feeling right again, which it’s close. I want to get out there and finish strong, finish better than I started,” Clarke said.