Derek Johnson Appreciation Thread

[Surhoff5]

"Rick Kranitz appreciation thread

Posted: April 24, 2016, 8:30 AM

Brewers are on pace to have their worst ever pitching numbers. Meanwhile Brewer staff is headed by a guy who made his name coaching top recruits at Vanderbilt."

 

The post above was made by a certain poster on this board and I thought it would be fun to bump, but unfortunately the thread was locked.

 

I don't know how much credit the pitching coach should or shouldn't get, but the Crew's staff has been pretty amazing this year considering their past track records. In the article below it talks about how Johnson and Nelson worked hard to change his delivery even with poor results last year. It is a testament to both of them on how well he and pretty much the entire staff has pitched this year.

 

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/20754211/inside-secret-brewers-surprising-success

[jerichoholicninja]

I thought the opinion of Johnson last year was that he was horrible?

[Fear The Chorizo]

With the combination of the actual quote and the representative date of that post being roughly 3 weeks into a 162-game season, I have no doubt who posted that...

 

Kudos to the Brewer organization and coaching staff as a whole in recent years for fielding a competitive pitching staff at all - it cannot be understated that the Brewers have MLB's lowest team payroll this season, in part because they largely chose not to spend on pitching. When Stearns did on Feliz, which was likely to try and flip him at this year's deadline, they cut bait after it was apparent he couldn't close games. The rest of the teams contending for playoff spots rank #1 (dodgers), #2 (yankees), #3 (red sox), #8 (cubs), #9 (nats), #11 (angels), #14 (cards), #16(rockies), #17 (indians),#18 (astros), #22 (twins), and #26 (dbacks) in terms of opening day payroll. Kudos for the Dbacks having a great season with only a $93M opening day payroll, but that is still $30M clear of the Brewers. By every measure, this year's Brewer team is in rebuild mode - the only way you field a MLB team in this day and age for under $70M is by putting a pitching staff together filled with youngsters, veteran castoffs, and a few nuggets mined from other organizations identified by your scouts. That sort of pitching staff is expected to struggle at times in order for different pitchers to get their shot at the MLB level and see if they can do the job. The fact they are legit postseason contenders with two weeks of the season remaining is fantastic.

 

This year's bullpen was the team's weakest link during the first four months of the season - they blew a good number of late inning leads that have likely cost the Brewers the division since the Cubs have been playing great since the AS break, although they still have a legit shot at them. But, since a few deadline deals were made to bring in relievers (those trades were panned as being insignificant by quite a few posters), the bullpen has solidified and has been among the best in baseball - thanks in part to quality starts to keep them from being overextended, even with key starters being injured during this season. Had they not improved, this team would be closer to Cincinnati in the standings instead of the Cubs, because their offense has gone through extended periods of futility the past few months.

[MillerParkSouth]

I thought that article was great and it was very interesting to see how he and Jimmy stuck with the changes last year even though they weren't paying immediate dividends. Hopefully he can continue his success!

[jerichoholicninja]

Finally read the article and it really doesn't say much. Sometimes Johnson makes a tweak or suggestion, sometimes he doesn't. I'm sure he's made some sort of difference but I think a lot of it is that this is a relatively young pitching staff and they're just naturally growing and improving with experience.

[Never Outhustled]

Johnson is our Dave Duncan. Best hire in organizational history.

[dacbrewers]

His tweaks to Jungmann last year were awful. I think another coach fixed him after the end of the year. So best hire in organizational history is a stretch. Probably the primary reason he didn't get called up this year.

[gregmag]

If you look at the staff in the aggregate, they've exceeded expectations by a wide margin. If you look at in-season adjustments, both the rotation and the pen have improved dramatically. I'm still trying to wrap my head around this: two fifths of our opening day rotation and our opening day closer pitched themselves into oblivion, and I (not alone, but I'll take the hit) was kvetching in May that our other three starters and most of our bullpen sucked; and now our pitching staff is leading a playoff run.

 

I have no idea how much credit coaches deserve for anything, but performance over expectations and improvement over the season seem like two pretty conventional metrics for assessing coaches. Johnson looks great by both.

[MillerParkSouth]

His tweaks to Jungmann last year were awful. I think another coach fixed him after the end of the year. So best hire in organizational history is a stretch. Probably the primary reason he didn't get called up this year.

The article said that it took Nelson half a season to start showing results of the tweaks, maybe that should what Jungmann was going through too. He was pretty good in AAA.

[dacbrewers]

His tweaks to Jungmann last year were awful. I think another coach fixed him after the end of the year. So best hire in organizational history is a stretch. Probably the primary reason he didn't get called up this year.

The article said that it took Nelson half a season to start showing results of the tweaks, maybe that should what Jungmann was going through too. He was pretty good in AAA.

 

I recall reading an article from somewhere that stated Jungmann went back to one of his former coaches last off season and got tweaked back to his original delivery. It obviously worked because he pitched great at AAA this year.