Wes Johnson explains what makes him successful working with pitchers

New Georgia baseball head coach Wes Johnson has proven that he is elite when it comes to developing pitchers.

Johnson has had success as a pitching coach in Major League Baseball, as well as the college ranks. Prior to taking over the Georgia program, he was most recently the pitching coach at LSU this past season as the Tigers won the national title.

Johnson explained during his introductory press conference why he has been so good at developing pitchers.

“I’ll tell you what people think – velocity. I’ve increased players’ velocity on the mound,” Johnson said. “That track record is out there. You can obviously look that up and see. That’s what probably — and trackman is a big part of that, force plate mounds and so forth. There’s a lot of technology we use. But at the end of the day, it comes down to everybody’s going to say velocity.”

Throwing hard doesn’t guarantee success on the mound, but it certainly doesn’t hurt.

Wes Johnson had plenty of pitchers who could throw hard this past season at LSU, with Paul Skenes being the best of the bunch.

Skenes transferred in from Air Force and was the Tigers’ ace this past season, regularly throwing 100-plus miles per hour. He is expected to be a top 5 pick in the upcoming MLB draft. Skenes is just one of several players who Johnson has helped reach a new level as a pitcher. That should help with recruiting now that Johnson is with the Bulldogs.

Wes Johnson breaks down his plan to attack recruiting within the state of Georgia

Speaking of recruiting, Wes Johnson recently discussed his plan for recruiting the state of Georgia.

For Johnson to succeed as the leader of the Bulldogs program, he knows that he is going to have to recruit well in-state.

Georgia is loaded with high school talent, but the Bulldogs didn’t keep enough of their top players at home under former coach Scott Stricklin.

Johnson doesn’t expect that to be a problem now that he is running the program.

“Here’s a fun fact, I was born in Atlanta, Georgia,” Johnson said, when asked if he has ties to the state. “So I know the area well. Know a lot of the coaches. Obviously I’ve coached and recruited for a long time. If you’re going to be any good, you come to the state of Georgia. They’ve got phenomenal baseball players here.”