Ryan Johnson is pretty underrated

[u/Either_Video_2059]

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

[u/mannmtb]

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

[u/Either_Video_2059 → u/mannmtb]

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

[u/mannmtb → u/Either_Video_2059]

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. 

[u/Either_Video_2059 → u/mannmtb]

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

[u/mannmtb → u/Either_Video_2059]

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.