11:03PM: Johnson will obtain a $750K annual wage from LSU, Gleeman and Hayes report, a serious improve over the roughly $350K per yr that the coach acquired from the Twins. Johnson will certainly go away for LSU when the Twins’ collection in Cleveland concludes on Thursday.
7:17PM: Maki shall be promoted and turn into the Twins’ new pitching coach, Gleeman and Hayes report (via Twitter). Additionally from Hayes, talks between the Twins and Johnson have been extra about “what would possibly make [the] job extra interesting” to Johnson, and he didn’t ask the membership for extra money. LSU, in the meantime, was “very aggressive” in recruiting Johnson.
6:30PM: In a shock midseason transfer, Twins pitching coach Wes Johnson is leaving the workforce to return to the faculty ranks, as D1 Baseball’s Kendall Rogers (Twitter link) studies that Johnson has been employed as LSU’s new pitching coach. Johnson is in his fourth season with the Twins, however has earlier SEC ties — he labored as a pitching coach at Mississippi State and at Arkansas earlier than becoming a member of Minnesota in November 2018.
Johnson had by no means labored in professional baseball previous to being employed by the Twins, although a number of groups lately have employed coaches with extra diversified resumes than the same old background as a participant, coach, or supervisor on the MLB or minor league ranges. In that regard, Johnson was one thing of a forerunner to this development, as he was an early adopter of Trackman expertise even on the school stage.
For the reason that begin of the 2019 season, Minnesota pitchers rank tenth in baseball in fWAR (46.8), which is a powerful whole even factoring within the accidents and efficiency drop-offs that plagued the Twins throughout their disappointing 2021 marketing campaign. Beginning pitching was seen as a giant query mark for the Twins heading into 2022, however the membership has weathered one other set of accidents to publish strong-to-respectable numbers in a number of classes. The success tales embody Chris Archer’s comeback yr, and rookie Joe Ryan pitching effectively in his first full MLB season.
The pitching has been a purpose behind the Twins’ 41-33 file, and rise to first place within the AL Central. With this in thoughts, it makes it all of the extra uncommon that Johnson would go away so abruptly — The Athletic’s Dan Hayes studies that the Twins solely discovered yesterday about Johnson’s negotiations with LSU. With Minnesota about to start an vital five-game collection in opposition to the Guardians, Aaron Gleeman of The Athletic provides that Johnson is predicted to stay with the Twins till that collection is over.
Presumably, assistant pitching coach Luis Ramirez or bullpen coach Pete Maki are the likeliest candidates to step into Minnesota’s pitching coach function on a minimum of an interim foundation. Given the sudden nature of Johnson’s departure, the Twins are maybe extra apt to attend till after the season to rent a everlasting substitute.
