Back in May, Kody Clemens completed two full seasons of major league service time. That might not seem like much, but he’s also appeared in more Twins games this season than all but five of his current teammates.
Weird way to gain seniority, eh?
The Twins believe it’s no fluke, and with 13 home runs and an .812 OPS, he might have already shed the “journeyman” label for a new and unexpected one: Leader.
“I didn’t really say that I was going to step up and take that role, but I’ve had conversations with the [coaching] staff and Derek [Falvey, the team president] and guys who have told me they think this is a good spot for me to step up and be that guy,” Clemens said. “It’s something you don’t really see much in the big leagues, where a team is so young, so new. But guys like me and Wally [Matt Wallner], we look in the mirror and realize we’ve got a lot of young players now and we kind of need to step up and show the way.”
Sounds good to his manager.
“He conducts himself in a really good way. He has a good mentality for the game, and a great energy to play this game,” Rocco Baldelli said of his utilityman, who has played first and second base, plus right and left field. “He’s a hungry, hungry player. He came in here and he’s just waiting for his at-bats, for his time to be on the field, and he believes in himself. He’s taken full advantage of it.”
The real clubhouse leader of the Twins, especially with Carlos Correa traded and Pablo López injured, is Byron Buxton, Clemens said, “a great leader who leads by example.” When the Twins traded 10 players from the major league roster at the July deadline, Buxton “realized it was something that needed to be addressed a little bit, and so he did.”
Once the players realized they needed to move on and refocus on the final two months of the season, Clemens, at 29 the fourth-oldest player on the roster, understood he needed to be as helpful off the field as on it.
