MD
Johnson

2/23/19: looked strong in the early goings this 2019 season and put together an impressive outing against Minnesota in the series finale. The 6-foot-6, 185-pound righty looks thicker than his listed weight (in a good way) and had no difficulty maintaining his stuff through six innings and 80 pitches, despite high-effort mechanics. Johnson scattered five hits and fanned nine in this outing, relying primarily on an 88-to-92 mph fastball that runs straight and true, but also tunnels well with his 82-to-84 mph tilted slider. That one-two punch was enough to keep Gopher hitters off balance for much of the afternoon, with Johnson also showing some feel for a low-80s changeup with solid arm speed deception and some dive (though he used the offering only sparingly and almost exclusively while ahead in the count). Johnson utilizes a rocking start to his motion and does an admirable job staying in sync throughout, despite throwing with a lot of effort and a significant head whack pitch-to-pitch. He utilizes his limby build, good extension and a fairly consistent over-the-top release point with all three pitches to help the stuff play up a notch, and while he's more precise to the zone than to the quadrants the pitch plane overlap across his arsenal makes it difficult for hitters to ID any particular offering out of the hand. As he's throwing now, Johnson looks like an intriguing senior sign in the 5th to 7th round range, profiling as a potential swing man or multi-inning reliever depending on whether he can continue to miss enough bats to offset his flyball tendencies. (Faleris)