Ty Johnson Report

Ty Johnson was named pitcher of the week in the International League (AAA) for the Durham Bulls after a 5 inning no hitter. 

After walking the first batter of the game, Johnson went on to pick the runner off and face the minimum in his 5 innings of work. The lanky righty attacked the hitters with a simple but effective two pitch mix. Johnson has a simple delivery that is solely out of the stretch. With a repeatable leg lift, he has a short arm path that hides the ball well and provides some deceptiveness.  

Johnson’s fastball is not an overpowering offering velocity wise, but the mix of well above average spin (2636) and solid ride, (17in iVB) led to positive results. While relying on the fastball almost 60 percent of the time, he was still able to garner a 35 percent whiff rate on the fastball and limit the hard contact with only a 0.183 xwOBA against. Throughout the outing, the hitters seemed uncomfortable against the offering even with the high usage rate.   

The slider is another high spin offering to compliment the fastball. The shape is a true gyro/bullet slider that has short hard action to it. The spin clearly plays well off the fastball as the offering had hitters out in front of it consistently leading to a 40 percent whiff rate. Johnsons was comfortable glove side with the offering keeping it away from righties and locating it well to the backfoot of the lefties.  

While the results have been very good in AAA this year, Johnson does not have a deep enough arsenal to be a starter in the big leagues. It would be interesting to see what a move to the bullpen would to for the velocity numbers as seeing a tick up would likely allow him to be a contributor in a big league bullpen.

Unless that happens, it's hard to grade either of his offerings out as above average. The slider is effective to get hitters off the fastball but it would really benefit Johnson to develop a changeup or a cutter with iVB between the slider and fastball (likely in the 10-12in range)

Grades