ATHENS — Players have celebrated the way Georgia coach Wes Johnson approaches the mental side of baseball since he came to Athens last season.
The longtime SEC pitching coach recently was compared with a wizard by Georgia State transfer Davis Chastain, impressed by Johnson’s extensive pitching knowledge.
Johnson’s technical know-how isn’t all he brings to the dugout, though. He also carries a soft-skills message of self-confidence, helping players establish a belief in themselves that players often credited for UGA’s 43-17 season in Johnson’s first year.
But Johnson also is extremely results-driven, using a mysterious slew of analytics to drive coaching and managerial decisions.
“I’ve been on record saying I’m 98% objective and 2% subjective when it comes to filling out a lineup,” Johnson said. “So there’s nothing that we don’t do that doesn’t involve analytics or data.”
Johnson has been collecting data and analyzing his players since he started coaching them. Results, unlike a coach’s words, simply are what they are and can be discouraging in a game like baseball.
But Johnson’s data and message of self-confidence don’t work against each other. He weaves the two together in a way to where disappointing results can be used to encourage, focusing on player development.
“Results will take care of themselves if your routine’s right,” Johnson said. “It’s having the mindset of, ‘The majority of our players are at such a high level athletically, even if you strike out, you did something right in that at-bat.’
“You may have missed your pitch, but when you start to look at analytics, one of the things I start to talk to our players about is: When you have failure, what did you do right?”
It’s the kind of player development that attracted All-American pitcher Brian Curley to transfer from Virginia Commonwealth. Curley was one of several Georgia pitchers to impress in their debuts this weekend, tossing two hitless innings with three strikeouts in Saturday’s win over North Carolina-Wilmington.
“We’re looking at our statistics and any external stuff to give you confidence, like, ‘Hey, you’re really good right here. Throw it there, and you’re going to be your best,’” Curley said. “And the other side of it is like, ‘All right, if you shouldn’t have confidence in something, we’re going to make it better.’
“We’re going to analyze this, this is why it didn’t work, we’re going to take a step back and we’re going to fix it, and you’re going to have confidence next time.”
Johnson said he is past the experimental phase of understanding his new roster, which has 22 newcomers, including 16 transfers.
The former MLB pitching coach is still finding out exactly what he has, especially on the pitching staff. Johnson said he is working with much more depth than he had in Year One, and that depth showed in Georgia’s opening weekend.
Johnson used 15 pitchers last weekend across four games, leaning on the staff’s depth from the jump after No. 1 starter Kolten Smith was scratched hours before opening day.
Outside of one six-run inning allowed by Ohio State transfer Zach Brown, Georgia’s staff combined for six earned runs on 14 hits, 19 walks and 36 strikeouts.
Johnson will keep evaluating his pitchers and his offense Tuesday night when the Bulldogs visit Kennesaw State at 6 p.m. (ESPN-Plus).
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