Twins Pitching Coach Wes Johnson Named LSU Pitching Coach

11:03 PM: Johnson will receive an annual stipend of $750,000 from LSU, Jaliman and Hayes Report, a huge increase over the nearly $350,000 a year coach received from the twins. Johnson will actually leave for LSU when the twins series concludes in Cleveland on Thursday.

7:17 PM: Mackie will be promoted and become the Twins’ new show coach, Jaliman and Hayes report (Via Twitter). also from HayesAnd the The conversations between Twins and Johnson revolved around ‘What can be made? [the] More attractive job” to Johnson, and he did not ask for more money from the club. Meanwhile, LSU was “too aggressive” in recruiting Johnson.

6:30 pm: In a surprising mid-season move, coach Wes Johnson leaves the team to return to the college ranks, as D1 Baseball’s Kendall Rogers (Twitter link) reports that Johnson has been appointed as LSU’s new pitching coach. Johnson is in his fourth season with the Twins, but he has previous relationships with the SEC – he worked as a coach at Mississippi State and in Arkansas before joining Minnesota in November 2018.

Johnson had never worked in professional baseball before he was hired by the Twins, although in recent years several teams have hired coaches with more diverse resumes than the usual background as a player, coach, or manager in the MLB or minor league. In this respect, Johnson has been something of a pioneer in this trend, being an early adopter of the Trackman technology even at the college level.

Since the start of the 2019 season, the Minnesota pitchers have ranked 10th in baseball in FWAR (46.8), a solid total even considering the injuries and underperformance that plagued the Twins during their disappointing 2021 campaign. The start of the show was seen as a huge question mark for the twins heading into 2022, but the club faced another set of injuries to post strong, respectable numbers across several categories. Include success stories Chris Archeryear back, and the rookie Joe Ryan The stadium did well in the first full MLB season.

The escalation was the reason the Twins scored ’41-33, rising to number one at AL Central. With this in mind, it makes it all the more weird that Johnson is leaving so suddenly – Dan Hayes from Athletic Reports that the twins only learned yesterday about Johnson’s negotiations with LSU. With Minnesota on the verge of starting an important five-game series against the Guardians, Aaron Jaliman from The Athletic He adds that Johnson is expected to stay with the twins until the series ends.

It is assumed that assistant shooting coach Luis Ramirez or Bullpen coach Pete Mackie are the most likely candidates to enter the role of shooter in Minnesota on at least a temporary basis. Given the sudden nature of Johnson’s departure, the twins may be more than willing to wait until after the season to hire a permanent replacement.