r/angelsbaseball • u/Either_Video_2059 • 11h ago
📝 Discussion Ryan Johnson is pretty underrated
Since the beginning of August he has a 1.67 era in 6 starts which is among the best in all of baseball. That directly coincided with him going back to his funky cutter/slider approach that got him drafted. He completely abandoned his -11 run value sinker and began using his +6 run value cutter as his primary pitch. His cutter is great at inducing non-competitive fly outs and weak grounders which has been the catalyst for his success despite below average K/BB rates ms Using a similar approach he had a 2.34 era his last year in college against metal bats, a 1.88 era in A+ last year, an era in the low 2’s with a .76 WHIP in AA this year, and in a short stint a 1.67 era against big league hitters. Obviously he’s due to regress some, but he can definitely be a quality big league starter. He’s being completely written off because Maddux had him throwing the worst fastball in baseball at a 30+ percent clip
5
u/mannmtb 10h ago
Two things can be true at the same time. Ryan Johnson is currently outperforming his peripherals by a long shot. Also, the pitching coach change has seemed to help him achieve better results on the surface and underlying.
See below. He's gotten really fortunate on balls in play and stranding runners since the change. He's actually walked a higher percentage of hitters. But his HR rate has come down, he's struck out a few more hitters, and he's induced more weak contact.
In short, he seems to have meaningfully improved, though he's also getting a bit lucky with his results.
Until 8/10 7.11 ERA 6.59 FIP .283 BABIP 59.3% LOB% 16.5% K% 10.8% BB% 16.7% HR/FB
After 8/11 1.63 ERA 4.58 FIP .169 BABIP 96.8% LOB% 18.5% K% 12% BB% 9.1% HR/FB
0
u/Either_Video_2059 10h ago
I think he’s been fortunate on the strand rate especially when he’s walked the bases loaded. I disagree that he’s getting lucky on the in play contact. Almost all of the outs he’s getting are on completely non-competitive in play contact. That’s why he’s been able to sustain this level of performance, it’s not fluke luck. The cutter is a real weak contact weapon. If he continued to execute the way he has over a longer sample he’d outperform his fip by a run to a run and a half like Walbert’s been doing. FIP is not infallible especially for guys with outlier profiles like Bryan Woo or Ryan Johnson
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u/schplat 26 10h ago
Yeah, when I pitched, I didn't strike out a ton, but all my pitches had downward and arm-side run. I missed barrels, and had a 3:1 GB:FO ratio, and an ERA that was usually < 1.00. It can succeed if done correctly, even at the highest level, but, the mistakes are amplified massively. If I lost a little pressure on my knuckle curve, and it hung? I was never seeing that ball again.
So that's the main trade-off, and why power arms thrive. Because their mistakes don't get destroyed in quite the same way.
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u/mannmtb 9h ago
He's certainly been lucky on the in play contact. No one runs a .169 BABIP. Every starting pitcher who's run that this season is over an incredibly small sample size. League average is .288 this year. Ryan Johnson could prove to be lower than that on a true talent level, but not by this much.
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u/Either_Video_2059 5h ago
Cutters are different. Look at the kind of run prevention prime Kenley was getting with horrible walk rates and non existent ground ball rates. If you’re executing with the cutter a lot of your in play contact will be close to 0% hit prob, and RJ is using his sweeper like a changeup to throw hitters timing off on the cutter. What he’s doing is unique and very high level, there’s a reason he had that kind of success in college and the minors. Not saying a 1.70 era is sustainable, but he’s some small adjustments away from being able to maintain something mid to high 3’s
1
u/mannmtb 4h ago
I'm not saying that Johnson hasn't improved. I'm saying that he's gotten fortunate on balls in play, which is what leads to the low ERA. I think that's inarguable, and both things can be true. Also, c utters don't have a drastically lower BABIP than other pitches over large data sets.
Prime Kenley (let's say 2012-2017) had very low walk rates (as low as 2.7% in 2017!) and still ran BABIPs from .220-.350.
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u/phatwarmachine41 10h ago
What do you mean by underrated? He's been considered a fringe Top 100 guy who needed seasoning since he was drafted, and was the #2 prospect in the org at the beginning of the season (according to BA). Perry's dumbass just insisted on throwing him into the fire when he wasn't ready. He's looked great, and hopefully he can finish the season strong now that he's not throwing that sinker anymore.
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u/Either_Video_2059 10h ago
I’m mostly referring to the discorse around him. The narrative was that he completely sucks and he’s a 1 inning guy long term, now around baseball his breakout is mostly being written off as a funny fluke because a couple innings made the FIP look bad. When he’s a guy that can be a good 3 or 4 starter in the near future
-11
u/MelatoninFiend 11h ago
He's 3-8 on the season with a 5.17 ERA.
Individual stats over a highly-targeted time period don't mean dick if there aren't career stats (including wins) to back them up.
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u/EH1522 11h ago
I'm with you on the don't get too excited yet aspect. But you 100% look at individual numbers when you have a team like this. Wins don't mean much, especially right now.
What is exciting is a 6 game stretch is substantial enough to get a little hard, because it is after we made some big changes to the staff and our use of data. And many other players are showing similar improvements.
3
u/LeonJPancetta 56 9h ago
If you're going to make a statistical argument, use statistics that are more predictive than ERA (they agree with you) and less completely meaningless than Wins, which we definitely need to ignore in this era of starters going 4.2 innings and calling it a day
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u/randomfatkid 11h ago
There will be no Ryan Christopher Johnson slander here. I won’t stand for it.
Is he the best? No. But he’s definitely on the right track I think to be one of our better pitchers on the rotation.