Denzel Clarke Cannot Be Stopped. Plus Another Double-A Player to Keep an Eye On.

Denzel Clarke, whose 2023 season was delayed some three weeks by a strained left shoulder, is off to an electric start for the Double-A Midland RockHounds.

Clarke, who spent part of the spring in big league camp with the A’s has just been named the Texas League Player of the Week — in his first week in the circuit, no less. It’s also, as it turns out, his 23rd birthday. In four games, the outfielder launched four home runs (two came in his Double-A debut), collected three doubles and posted a .500 average with a 2.017 OPS.

It was just last week that I wrote about Clarke and fellow Midland outfielder Lawrence Butler (who has a .329 average of his own) after GM David Forst, during his weekly show on A’s Cast, said that there were players in Double-A who could find their way to Oakland this season. I speculated that both Clarke and Butler could be among the players Forst was alluding to and also added third baseman Brett Harris and starter Royber Salinas to the list.

One player I forgot to mention? Darell Hernaiz, the youngest position player on the RockHounds’ roster. A 21-year-old shortstop, Hernaiz is 3.6 years younger than the average player in the league. Here’s the scouting report from a guy who knows a thing or two about being a young A’s shortstop.

“Well he's the nicest kid ever so he brings his personality, he brings his energy,” Bobby Crosby, the 2004 Rookie of the Year turned Midland manager, told NewsWest 9 a week into the season.

“I'm looking forward to seeing how he's gonna do this year,” Crosby added. “I know he can swing the bat and defensively he's looked really good. So the first time you go to Double-A you could have tough times and knowing his personality now I think he's gonna handle it fine, so we'll see what he does but I'm very optimistic on what he's gonna do for us.”

After 16 games, Hernaiz is hitting .313 with an .819 OPS. He’s also stolen five bases in six tries.

The A’s acquired Hernaiz in a three-player swap for Cole Irvin at the end of January. In the opening days of the season, as the rotation looked poised to become a historic mess, I wondered why the team would have traded Irvin. After all, the left-hander had made at least 30 starts in back-to-back seasons. As I write this now, the rotation is tied for the second-fewest innings in baseball and has given up the most runs. Infamously, the group has yet to record a win, a collective 0-15.

But maybe Forst and Co. were onto something. Irvin, surprisingly, was optioned to Triple-A on April 14, a day after his old team torched him for six runs across four innings, pushing his ERA to 10.66.

Hernaiz, meanwhile, is on the rise — and he plays a position where the A’s are searching for an answer. The club has seemingly shown no inclination to give defensive whiz Nick Allen a crack at the shortstop gig, Kevin Smith has 23 strikeouts and one walk, Aledmys Diaz, who may or may not be headed to the IL, is hitting .153 with the lowest OPS (.438) in baseball and utility man Tyler Wade has been DFA’d, currently awaiting his fate in baseball’s transactional purgatory.

All of which is to say, “Keep on eye on Hernaiz.” If he continues his hot start, the organization’s positional need could land him in Las Vegas this summer and Oakland before the season’s out.