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Clement looks like a natural at first

Former catcher transitioning well to new position

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By Anthony DiComo / MLB.com

03/09/10 5:07 PM ET

TAMPA, Fla. -- Charlie Morton got the ground ball he needed, but trouble still lurked. Morton's pitch was too good, the movement too dynamic and the result was an achingly slow roller to short.

Charging, Ronnie Cedeno gloved it and fired to first -- but low and in the dirt.

First baseman Jeff Clement did not flinch.

"That's been one of those things that, up to this point, hasn't been difficult," said Clement, the Pirates' new first-base project. "You can kind of learn how to go after a ball in the dirt. When you get one in a game, it's just a matter of seeing it and going after it and trying to make a play."

Learning to play first base hasn't actually been quite so difficult for Clement, who continues to work on the transition from catching during his first Spring Training with the Pirates. In the Bucs' 12-7 win on Tuesday, the Yankees tested him three times -- once on a hot line drive right at him, once on a bouncer just left of the bag and once on Cedeno's low throw to first.

Clement passed all three tests. And his manager took notice.

"He's playing pretty well," John Russell said. "Defense-wise, he's doing fine."

The transition, for Clement, had its roots in necessity. Once a top catching prospect, Clement became a designated hitter with the Mariners after two minor knee surgeries began to undermine his health. Though he did not take the field at all during the first half of last season, Clement began playing exclusively at first base after the Pirates acquired him last summer in a seven-player deal.

He misses catching, misses calling games, misses "being involved in every play."

But Clement also realizes that first base has become his quickest path to the Majors.

The Pirates, meanwhile, have every reason to give him a chance. Still just 26 years old, Clement is a left-handed hitter with a bit of power -- and the potential for lots of it. It was that makeup that prompted the Mariners to select him third overall in the 2005 First-Year Player Draft. It was that pedigree that piqued the Pirates' interest when they were gauging the trade market for Ian Snell last summer.

The Bucs ultimately settled on a package from the Mariners centered around Clement, who had not fielded a ground ball in a competitive setting since high school.

Naturally, the Pirates asked him to become a first baseman.

"College, I always caught," Clement said. "Pro ball, I always caught. I'm taking a lot of ground balls and working hard to do things right."

In a way, the fact that the Pirates see him as a future first baseman is somewhat flattering. It takes a stronger offensive player to stick in the big leagues as a first baseman than as a catcher, and the Bucs believe that Clement has the skill set to do it.

It also means that Clement will face a stiffer challenge, and that -- at least on offense -- his margin for error will be slim. Though he is the favorite to win the first-base job out of Spring Training, he has no guarantees.

He will need to improve, plain and simple, after falling somewhat flat during his first real tour of the big leagues. In 2008, after arriving in Seattle for a cup of coffee the summer before, Clement batted just .227 in 203 at-bats for the Mariners, hitting five home runs but striking out more than four times as often as he walked.

Clement did not crack the Majors last year, despite a relatively strong season at Triple-A Tacoma prior to the trade. But he did show some flashes of home run power -- 21 of them, to be exact -- in 470 at-bats split between two organizations.

On Tuesday, he popped out and struck out to lower his Grapefruit League average to .077, but it was his performance in the field that mattered most.

"I get more and more comfortable the more I'm out there," Clement said.

And that includes scooping balls out of the dirt.

"Some of them should be picked, some of them are just lucky picks," Clement said. "No matter how good you are, no matter how hard you practice, some of those throws are going to be tough either way."

But the one in the third inning on Tuesday, the one that Cedeno delivered on a nasty in-between hop?

"That one was a tough one," Clement said, laughing. "I was happy to have made that play."

Anthony DiComo is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.