A St. Louis farmhand in Palm Beach took home Player of the Week honors across Minor League Baseball for the third straight week.
After infielders Cade McGee and Josh Kross brought home the award in consecutive weeks, Palm Beach pitcher Randel Clemente brought the award back to Palm Beach for his stellar week on the mound in Jupiter.
Clemente held Clearwater hitless over two scoreless relief appearances. The 23-year-old struck out six batters over the four innings pitched while only walking one batter. The walks were the number one issue for Clemente over his short professional career thus far, so the small sample size so far in 2025 has seen a slight improvement from last season. The strikeout numbers have always been high for the right-hander, but the walk rate got out of control last season after he was promoted to Palm Beach.
The Dominican Republic native walked a staggering 30 batters over 22 innings pitched after his mid-season promotion to Low-A Palm Beach. That came after walking 20 batters over 26 innings pitched during his stint to start the season in the Florida Complex League. Fast forward to 2025, he has only issued four free passes over his six innings to start the season. Yes, it is a very small sample size, but it is currently a lower BB/9 by a whole walk on the season.
In his 5 outings in 2025, he carries a 6.75 ERA across 6.2 innings pitched along with surrendering 6 hits, 5 earned runs, and 4 walks and tallying 9 strikeouts.
Clemente is entering his fourth season in the Cardinals organization after signing as an international free agent in 2020. Including his time in the Dominican Summer League, Clemente has now thrown 128 innings since turning professional with the Cardinals. While the bat-missing ability has been a full display in Low-A, it will continue to be a work in progress with the command to eventually earn a promotion to High-A Peoria.
The Palm Beach Cardinals open the week at home on Tuesday for a six-game homestand against the Jupiter Hammerheads.