Baseball's No. 5 Top Overall Prospect Launches First Home Run For Detroit Tigers Affiliate

Max Clark, the Tigers' first-round pick in 2023, socked his first home run of the year for High-A West Michigan over the weekend.

Whitecaps center fielder Max Clark walks toward the dugout on Friday, April, 4, at LMCU Ballpark. | Adam Vander Kooy/Holland Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Playing for the High-A West Michigan Whitecaps over the weekend, Detroit Tigers top prospect Max Clark hit his first home run of the season on Sunday.

Clark, 20, was the first-round pick of the Tigers in 2023 out of the Indiana High School ranks. He is the top position player prospect in the organization and the No. 5 prospect in baseball, per MLB Pipeline.

Max Clark goes the other way for his first homer of the season, and he is PUMPED!

MLB's No. 5 prospect (@tigers) is up to a 1.325 OPS to open the 2025 campaign for the High-A @wmwhitecaps: pic.twitter.com/1gW5S7zPW3

— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) April 6, 2025

Clark hit .279 a season ago across 73 games at Low-A Lakeland and 34 with West Michigan. He posted a .372 on-base percentage and a .793 OPS. He had nine homers and 21 doubles.

The following comes from a portion of his MLB.com prospect profile:

The left-handed hitter is hit-over-power at this still-early age of his development. He ran solid contact rates against most pitch types (save for the slider) in the FSL and generally didn’t chase much, leading to healthy walk and strikeout rates. His exit velocities were around average for the level, and his power didn’t quite pop in terms of slugging numbers due to a high ground-ball rate. Just entering his 20s, Clark has already added strength from his amateur days, and if he adds a little more loft as part of that trajectory, there’s the potential for at least average power.

The Whitecaps are off on Monday, as is standard for minor league teams. They'll be back in action on Tuesday at Lake County, which is the High-A affiliate of the Cleveland Guardians.

At the major league level, the Tigers will host the New York Yankees on Monday afternoon at 3:10 p.m. ET.

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