Wes Johnson always had a plan. He never left the dugout without knowing how to get out of the jam. Whatever Johnson lacked in stature, he made up for in energy. The Sherwood, Ark.-born pitching coach would offer instruction and a pep talk in his Southern accent. He frequently coaxed his subject to get back into the strike zone to try and escape the inning unscathed.
In some ways, it seems fitting that Johnson is headed back to college. As unorthodox as it was that he left a first-place MLB team for a college gig, the Minnesota Twins’ decision to hire the former University of Arkansas hitting coach was equally unique. No major league team had hired a pitching coach directly out of college baseball before the hire. Teams typically hired them out of the minor leagues or another major-league club.
But beyond that, Johnson talked and acted like a college coach. He embraced teaching biomechanics to his pitchers, offering insight on how to use their glutes to rotate their hips faster and increase their pitch velocity. Johnson took reams of data and streamlined it so that the organization understood when to use which relievers and the pitchers knew what pitches they should throw. Then, when his guys needed a little confidence boost, Johnson would jump-start them with his infectious enthusiasm.
A rah-rah guy who embraces teaching? It wasn’t just Louisiana State University’s Godfather offer that got him to leave Minneapolis for Baton Rouge in the middle of the season. However, it probably didn’t hurt that LSU offered him up to $750,000 to coach a third of the games – nearly doubling his $400,000 salary with the Twins.
Pete Maki and Colby Suggs know biomechanics and process advanced analytics daily. Like Johnson, Maki and Suggs coached in college. Maki, 39, was the assistant pitching coach at Columbia from 2008-15 and the pitching coach at Duke from 2015-17. Suggs, 30, played at Arkansas and later served as their bullpen coach. The Miami Marlins drafted him in the second round in 2013, and he pitched in their minor league system until 2016. He coached at private facilities in 2016 and 2017 before Arkansas hired him in 2018.
Maki and Suggs are intelligent guys, but they don’t have Wes’ personality.
“I don’t necessarily lead with gusto, and I can’t match Wes’ energy and enthusiasm that he brings every day,” admitted Maki, a wry East Coaster. “But I like to be a leader by presenting good information to pitchers, treating them with respect, and listening to what their needs are.”
Twins president Derek Falvey acknowledged that Maki doesn’t have Johnson’s energy. However, he doesn’t believe that’s a requisite for the job.
“I don’t think there’s one type of personality that works best in any role,” said Falvey.
Certainly what Pete’s strength is he’s very thoughtful. He’s very contemplative in how he navigates thinking through some of his pitching decisions. I remember that even going back to his work in the minor leagues. We’d have an end-of-season meeting for development plans for any of our young kids, and you’d ask Pete a question and he’d process and he’d think about it, and he’d ask a few other people their opinions, and he’d come up with all of this information.
It was like, ‘Were you holding that back from us? If I hadn’t asked you that question, were you going to share it?’ So, I think the best part of it is, he processes really thoughtfully, and when he comes out with it he has a ton of depth of content.
Maki was born in Texas, but he attended high school in Connecticut and pitched at Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania. Suggs, who’s more reserved, grew up in Sulpher Springs, Tex. before heading to Arkansas for college. He was visibly emotional about being promoted to bullpen coach. Suggs considers Johnson a mentor and says he and Maki aren’t looking to shake things up.
“We’re not going to try to replace Wes by any means,” he said. “We’re going to go about our business the same way.”
Suggs has served multiple roles since the Twins hired him in 2019. He was an advance scout in 2019 and 2020 and has been the coordinator of run prevention since 2020.
“He’s the best advance guy in the game,” Maki said emphatically. “The information that he provides for our starters and relievers, in terms of what our opponents do well, what they handle, what they can’t handle — it’s really top-notch.”
Maki was previously the bullpen coach. He admitted he’ll have to adjust to working primarily with the starters after mainly focusing on the relievers. Suggs spent most of his time in his office, between the batting cages. At Target Field, the batting cages are located between the dugout and the clubhouse. If anything, he seemed pretty excited about spending more time al fresco.
“I’ve wanted to coach, yeah,” admitted Suggs. “I definitely see myself as being an on-field person. I love being on the field, I love playing catch. I play catch with three guys a day pregame. So yeah, I love being on the field, being in the sunshine. Or the rain sometimes. But I like being on the field a lot.”
While coaching was the goal for Suggs, Maki said that major-league pitching coach wasn’t originally a goal for him.
“Working at this level for a long time was reserved for former big leaguers,” offered Maki, who captured four Ivy League championships at Columbia and was the pitching coach at Duke when they broke their 55-year NCAA Tournament drought. “I don’t have that background as a player, so it was never an option, or never a real opportunity until five, eight years ago.”
As much as Maki and Suggs emphasized the upside of coaching for a first-place team with many familiar faces around them, they took over at a fraught time. News broke that Johnson was taking the LSU job while he was on the plane to Cleveland. The Twins dropped three of four there largely because of the bullpen. Their two veteran relievers, Tyler Duffey and Emilio Pagán, were struggling. Rookie Jhoan Duran was holding the unit together.
Maki says he was ready for the challenge.
“Bring it on, man,” he said. “Bring on the struggles. We’re gonna go through periods of stink sometimes. I mean, it is what it is.”
It’s too early to tell whether Maki and Suggs can keep things together all year, but the early returns are promising. The Twins held their opponents to three runs or less for five straight games until their final game on the South Side spiraled out of control. They took two of three from the Baltimore Orioles and Chicago White Sox. Pagán recorded two wins before giving up a two-run bomb in Chicago, and they handled Chris Archer’s late scratch with aplomb.
Ultimately, whether Maki and Suggs stick around depends on how they communicate with their pitchers. They are using the same data Johnson did and understand biomechanics. But advanced analytics and body science are complicated, and pitchers want to know why they’re being pulled from the game or how to increase the velocity of their fastball. Johnson encouraged and instructed. He always had a plan. Maki and Suggs will need all three elements to replicate his success.
