The Josh Johnson Dilemma
Earlier this year, Jack Moore reviewed Josh Johnson’s inability to get hitters out while pitching from the stretch. Johnson and the Jays were very much aware of the situation, but even still, it did not improve as the season went on. In the end, Johnson limited batters to a .315 wOBA and a .307 BABIP when he worked out of a full wind-up, while opposing batters had a .440 wOBA and a .450 BABIP when Johnson worked out of the stretch. His BABIP while pitching from the stretch was 73 points higher than any other pitcher that made at least 15 starts in 2013.
The simple answer this dramatic split would be to simply point at Johnson’s BABIP and say he was unlucky. If one were to review the video from the first inning of his July 27th start against Houston, one could certainly believe that:
- Line drive single off the glove of Mark DeRosa by Jonathan Villar
- Line drive single past a diving Mark DeRosa by Jose Altuve
- Single through the right side by Jason Castro past a diving Mark DeRosa scores 1
- First pitch 3-run home run by Chris Carter
As Bruce Springsteen said in Lucky Town, “When it comes to luck you make your own.” Johnson’s .400 BABIP from the stretch through his first 11 starts ballooned to .625 over his final five outings, at which point he was mercifully shut down for rest of the season. There is certainly some bad luck in those results, but in reviewing the 2013 data and video, it appears to be part bad results, and part bad process.
Moore was not the only writer to review Johnson’s issues from the stretch in 2013, as many media types that cover Toronto noticed this as well. Gregg Zaun was the most critical of Johnson, believing the pitcher’s issues were related to his mechanics, his sequencing of his pitches, his velocity, and even his demeanor. Zaun believed the larger problem for Johnson was adjusting with his fastball, as he shared with Mike Rutsey of the Toronto Sun:
“He can’t pitch with his fastball (currently) and he needs to pitch with his fastball,” Zaun went on. “At 92 or 93, he’s got to be on the edges. When he was throwing 96-plus, he could afford to miss in the middle of the plate because he could out-stuff guys… if he’s going to be living at 92 and 93, he better be pinpoint and learn how to pitch with that fastball.
“His curve has some bite at times, his slider is pretty darn good at times, but they all have to be set up with his fastball and I don’t see a guy right now who can pitch to all four quadrants of the strike zone with his fastball.”
Manager John Gibbons stated one specific criticism for Johnson to Rosie DiManno of the Toronto Star in terms of his mechanics, but was as befuddled as the hurler about the exact root cause of the issue.
“He has a tendency to yank it to his glove side, falls off the mound a little bit,’’ said Gibbons. “I think that’s where he gets in trouble. “It’s not something that jumps out at you . . . he gets in the stretch, he’s tipping something or what have you. It’s been kind of a mystery for him, for us.’’
Pitching coach Pete Walker echoed some of the same thoughts to DiManno as well as Brendan Kennedy, also of the Toronto Star:
“He tends to fly open a little bit right now in the lower half (of his body),’’ Walker observed. “So he’s missing a little bit of the arm side at times and also pulling his breaking ball off the plate….We’re trying to get him over his front side a little bit better, a little more stable on his front side and finishing pitches better down in the zone….he’s definitely having a tough time commanding the fastball with runners on….We’re certainly aware of that & we’re trying to rectify it.”
Simply put, Johnson was Jeckyll from the windup and Hyde from the stretch. The table below shows Johnson’s overall indicators in 2013.
| Delivery | GB% | Contact | Z-Contact | Zone% | O-Swing | BABIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Windup | 47.9% | 72.3% | 82.9% | 43.3% | 28.0% | 0.307 |
| Stretch | 40.1% | 77.5% | 85.9% | 41.3% | 30.1% | 0.450 |
When Johnson had to pitch from the stretch, he was unable to get on top of the baseball to generate the high rate of ground balls that he typically has done throughout his career and batters made frequent contact with his pitches, regardless of location. Now, let us look at those same indicators by pitch type for Johnson in 2013.
First, his fastballs:
| Delivery | GB% | Contact | Z-Contact | Zone% | O-Swing | BABIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Windup | 47.5% | 82.3% | 85.6% | 50.6% | 25.9% | 0.299 |
| Stretch | 43.4% | 87.8% | 89.4% | 47.7% | 28.9% | 0.437 |
Next, his breaking balls:
| Delivery | GB% | Contact | Z-Contact | Zone% | O-Swing | BABIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Windup | 45.0% | 56.8% | 75.3% | 32.3% | 31.6% | 0.282 |
| Stretch | 34.2% | 57.1% | 75.5% | 33.0% | 33.6% | 0.471 |
His change-up indicators are not listed because he only threw so few of them as his usage of the pitch has declined each of the past four seasons. His fastball found the zone with less frequency from the stretch, but when it did find the zone, batters had little trouble making contact with the pitch and hitting the ball into play safely. While batters also were able square up Johnson’s breaking balls in the zone for hits at an alarming rate, most of his indicators held true except for the decreased ground ball rate.
Those types of issues tend to appear when a pitcher is struggling with the command of his pitches, as well as falling into predictable patterns of pitch selection. When Johnson worked out of the stretch in 2013 and was behind in the count, he threw fastballs 71% of the time, compared to just 46% when he was ahead in the count. The fact Johnson had to use a pitch that he couldn’t command so frequently throughout the season helped lead to the forgettable final numbers he posted.
Johnson had the worst season of his career at the most inopportune time, as it was his final year before free agency. He missed half the season with arm issues that eventually ended his season on August 11th and resulted in surgery on October 1st. It is worth giving Johnson a mulligan due to the injuries which no doubt had an impact on his mechanics, but at the same time, it is still data that has to be considered when determining how much to pay him this winter.
The fact Johnson has worked more than 200 innings in a season just once in his career will loom large for any team looking to add his services in 2014, but there are still skills here to work with, as his 3.58 xFIP from 2013 shows. Pittsburgh’s attention to defensive positioning — and recent track record for helping pitchers rediscover what made them successful — would certainly be an intriguing landing spot for the still-talented right-hander.
Any way you could provide .GIFs to this article. I would be very interested in watching Johnson’s delivery from the windup and stretch to see if some mechanical differences are present.
Here are 2 that I created while working on this. If you use GifScrubber in Chrome, you can really have some fun with them.
from the stretch and from the windup.
I think those make it pretty clear that he isn’t committing his stride foot to and then down the line. From the wind-up, there is almost a hitch where he gets his heel in and down along the stride line, but from the stretch he glides out and open. Great GIFs.
Were there any changes in velocity between pitches in the windup and pitches in the stretch, or were his breaking pitches moving any differently?
Velos were nearly identical. His release point has gotten progressively lower. Pitch movement was rather consistent with previous efforts up until his final couple of outings.
Fellow Jays pitcher Brandon Morrow has had pretty much the same issue during his time with the organization.
Nice analysis Jason, glad to see your work here at FG
How bad would it be if Johnson just dumped the stretch and pitched from the windup with men on base?
Why not just intentionally balk every runner to third so he can always pitch from the windup?
That makes no sense seeing as pitchers throw from the stretch purely to avoid runners advancing via the steal.
Johnson has pitched well with runners on over his career. Why might 2013 have been different? In addition to mechanical issues, there might be some contribution from his new catcher. Arencibia has been known to make a perfunctory effort to block pitches, and this might have affected Johnson’s approach. You may recall that Arencibia was slated to catch some of Dickey’s games; after a disastrous first outing, that was scrapped.
Johnson did get 2 outings with Thole catching and pitched reasonably well.
I’m rather thoroughly convinced that Toronto’s coaching staff is below subpar. Pretty much every player that came to the organization broken or unset in their routines didn’t get any better, and only a pair of pull hitters became successful when the most obvious observation was made of them and implemented.
On the position player side you have Rasmus, Lawrie, EE and Bautista who have taken massive steps forward after coming from other organizations. If there was a “most obvious observation” on Bautista it was missed by at least four prior orgs.
The Johnson situation does raise questions, but there are also issues like the homer friendly ballpark and much tougher lineups than he was used to in Miami. Not to mention health.
Rasmus: Went through a year and a half of hell immediately after going to the Jays to get there, and is just repeating 2010, so it was already there.
EE/Bautista: Aforementioned pull hitters.
Lawrie: Ruined by the coaches insisting he aggressively pull everything, then has a massive glaring bat waggle that ruined his timing unfixed for all but the last days of 2013.
And that’s saying nothing to the pitching coaches, who seem to systematically wreck every young arm that comes around to their organization.
Lawrie took massive steps forward? The guy who basically had a good 171 PAs, then went to an okay 2012 and a below average 2013?
Maybe. Arencibia surely missed Wakamatsu last year, and if anything, took a step backward defensively. The infield defence was unquestionably worse and the loss of Butterfield (who was excellent at both player development and positioning) was significant. It is also true that the club’s record in pitcher development over the last few years has been pretty bad.
Still, in the particular case of Johnson last year, it seems a bit odd. He was terrific in spring training, and didn’t have it at all when he came north in April.
Personally, I think that it’s a combination of things- health, the catcher, the infield defence, luck.
Apparently I couldn’t reply to your other post below from 10:54
Rasmus: not arguing, but isn’t one of the issues that he stopped listening to his dad so much this year?
EE/ Bautista: Nobody else seemed to figure them out, and they’ve been some valuable hitters over the last few years, so it can’t be dismissed.
Lawrie: May or may not have been ruined by coaching, but definitely negatively affected by a bad attitude that may have as much impact.
I’ve been disappointed by the Jays coaching of late, wondering why they haven’t developed better players. Your comments don’t really hold up, though.
Joe Kerrigan, an intermittently successful pitching coach, simply did not believe in pitching from the stretch. A good pitcher who allows a lot of stolen bases is still better than a bad pitcher.
The Jays have been very successful developing relievers from within and via trades and free agency. Starting pitching is another story, although they traded their top prospect to the Mets and 3 pitchers with high potential to the Marlins. In hindsight those were very bad trades and if the Jays had keep those pitchers I think the agrument that the Jays do not develop pitchers would be moot.
Didn’t Zach Greinke have similar problems from the stretch in previous years? Any idea how he solved them?
Alex Cobb had troubles with this in 2012 that he fixed mechanically in 2013. Conversely, pitching out of the stretch was a strong suit for Hellickson before this season.
I was at the game referenced 🙂
It wasn’t much fun.
Why do virtually all pitchers insist on using two different approaches to home plate when delivering the ball? That’s twice the amount of muscle memory to replicate perfectly, twice the amount of steps to keep track of, and for most pitchers a drastically different pace inside the delivery. That just turns basic logic upside down. Even for pitcher’s who can’t pitch out of the stretch, they are better off focusing on just that type of delivery. They might see an improvement.
And for pitchers with windup issues, why the hell use it at all? Do they want to gimp their performance for absolutely no reason? At least a few relievers pitch from the stretch, but Yu Darvish is like the only starter in the game to abandon the windup, and look at what he does.
Because every starter can be like Yu Darvish? I can see giving it a shot maybe, but don’t expect fantastic results like that.
If you pitch from the windup with men on, isn’t it way too easy to steal, so you’d be turning singles into doubles at the least?
yes but if you strike out the next two guys then who cares if they guy steals!!
Assuming that’s a joke…
Just ask for a do-over any time a batter reaches base. Problem solved.
Outstanding stuff, JC.