Ernie Clement Is Chasing His Way Into MLB's Hit Race

Stats updated prior to the Blue Jays' game on Wednesday, June 10.

Ernie Clement is doing something that baseball history says shouldn't be possible. The Blue Jays infielder is among Major League Baseball’s hit leaders despite chasing pitches at a rate that would normally prevent a hitter from reaching the top of the leaderboard.

Most hitters in today’s game strive to maximize their power: swinging harder, optimizing their launch angles, and focusing on doing damage at the plate. For some players, that plan works well. Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani have had great careers doing just that. But one of the great things about baseball is that there is more than one way to be productive.

Regardless of the situation, Clement has a knack for getting the bat on the ball. So far in the 2026 season, he has continued to do exactly that. Just take a quick look at the MLB leaderboard for hits, and there is Ernie, right near the top:

What’s incredibly unique about Clement is that he’s doing it in a way that very few hitters have ever managed successfully. He swings more often than anyone on the Blue Jays and makes more contact than most of his teammates. He doesn’t swing the bat that hard (67.6 mph average bat speed), which results in a low average exit velocity. He doesn’t walk, but he also doesn't strike out; somehow, he just keeps getting hits, and while a .317 BABIP tells some of the story, it's not the whole picture.

Jays fans who have watched Ernie play know full well that he swings at almost anything he can reach, so even when a pitcher paints a pitch outside of the zone, he is still able to hit it. It's a skill that very few hitters in baseball possess.

These are the 2026 hit leaders on pitches outside of the zone, per Baseball Savant:

• T-1: Ernie Clement - 27
• T-1: Alec Burleson - 27
• T-3: Otto Lopez - 24
• T-3: Shohei Ohtani - 24
• 5: Jonathan Aranda - 23

The fact that Clement is near the top of the hits leaderboard isn’t unusual by itself. Every season, someone leads baseball in hits. What's unusual is how he’s getting there. The hitters who typically occupy the top of the leaderboard are disciplined hitters who limit chase and maximize quality contact. Clement is attempting to do it while chasing pitches at a rate rarely seen among baseball’s elite hit collectors. 

Looking back at every MLB hits leader over the last 12 seasons and comparing them to their chase rates reveals just how unusual his season has been:

Ernie Clement's 2026 chase rate entering play on June 9.

What Ernie Clement is doing is statistically unheard of in the Statcast era, and history suggests it's unlikely he’ll ultimately finish with the most hits in baseball while chasing this often. Yet, Clement has one skill that allows him to get away with it. When he swings, he simply does not miss.

Clement owns a contact rate of 85.7%, which has him in the top 20 in MLB. While most hitters who chase pitches out of the zone rack up strikeouts, Clement consistently finds a way to get the bat on the baseball.

The only reason Ernie gets away with it is how often he takes those out-of-zone pitches he swings at and puts them in play, doing so 44.3% of the time. 

This is where Clement’s path to accumulating hits begins to emerge. Because he rarely draws walks (3.0% BB rate) and strikes out infrequently (10.0% K rate), 87.0% of his plate appearances end with a ball in play. It's a number that ranks second among qualified hitters, behind only Luis Arraez. (You can find the full leaderboard here, updated before games on June 9.)

From there its how many of those batted balls turn into hits. And that's where BABIP comes into the picture. On the season, Clement owns a .320 BABIP, meaning that 32% of balls he puts into the field of play have resulted in hits. It also helps that he's on pace for a career-high 17 home runs; home runs aren't included in the calculation of BABIP.

High BABIPs are typically driven by elite speed, hard contact, line drives, or an all-fields approach. Ernie doesn’t necessarily excel in any of these categories. His sprint speed sits at 27.9 ft/sec, 66th percentile in the league. His 19.8% line drive rate (per FanGraphs) sits almost exactly at league average. His average exit velocity sits in the bottom sixth percentile in baseball, and if you take a look at his hit chart, it's fairly safe to say that an all-fields approach isn't behind this either.

via Baseball Savant

If Clement isn’t generating hits through elite speed or elite power, then the question becomes, what is driving his success?

The secret lies in his hand-eye coordination.

Baseball Savant measures this through a statistic called squared-up rate. In simple terms, it measures how much exit velocity a hitter generates relative to the maximum possible exit velocity, based on their bat speed and the speed of the pitch.

On squared-up baseballs this season, hitters have produced a .380 batting average and a .678 slugging percentage. Clement has squared up the ball 35.2% of the time, placing him in the top six percent of all major league hitters.

That doesn't tell the whole story, though. Clement seems to have a knack for hitting the baseball where the defenders aren't; this is evident in the difference between his xBA and his actual BA. His xBA, which calculates how likely a player is to get a hit based on launch angle and exit velocity, sits at .258. The 46-point difference between his .258 xBA and his .304 actual batting average suggests Clement has benefited from some favourable results, but it also raises the question of whether traditional models fully capture his unusual contact profile. 

Leading baseball in hits is often as much about availability as it is talent. The game’s hit leaders don’t just hit well; they’re also in the lineup every day. Ernie has played in 67 of the Blue Jays' 68 games so far. Given the defensive value he provides and his ability to play anywhere in the infield, playing time is unlikely to be a concern, barring injury.  

History suggests Clement’s approach shouldn’t work this well. Hit leaders typically don't chase this many pitches, and players with his batted ball profile rarely sustain this kind of production. Yet here he is, sitting among baseball’s hit leaders anyway.

Whether Ernie Clement ultimately finishes as baseball's hit king is almost beside the point. What makes his season remarkable is that he’s forcing us to reconsider what a modern hitter can look like.

If he keeps doing that, his first All-Star appearance may not be far behind.