Players I Want The Mets to Draft: RHRP Stephen Johnson

Stephen Johnson – RHRP – St. Edwards University (Austin, Texas)

Stephen Johnson is a tall and athletic closer for a division II school in Austin, Texas who made headlines a couple weeks ago for hitting 101 MPH in his season debut on February 6^th (he struck out the side). Standing at 6’4” and weighing 205 lbs, Johnson generates a lot of velocity from a ¾ slot. While no solid off-speed pitch exists at this point, he does have good arm-side run on his fastball and features a slurve-ish pitch which you can see in this Youtube video.

I know what you are thinking and no, we do not need another Bobby Parnell. However, while both are tall power righties, Johnson’s fastball already has better movement than Parnell’s and he is still in the stage of development where he can learn to refine or even develop new breaking pitches. After starting his first two years at St. Edwards, this year Johnson will step in as the closer for the Hilltoppers (yes, the Hilltoppers) and I do believe his future is as a reliever and not a starter. He adds velocity to his already plus-fastball in short bursts which has yielded very good results this year. Johnson has faced 11 batters so far this year and struck out seven of them, allowed one hit, and walked three. Though not much of a sample size, his work this past summer suggests his dominance as a closer is legit. In 24 innings for the Santa Barbara Foresters, Stephen struck out 29, compiled 4 saves, helped his team to a championship, and held batters to a .209 average.

Baseball America ranks him the best Division II prospect and #59 overall for the 2012 draft. If you watch the YouTube video above you can see how he generates the amazing force on the baseball but I would love to see him smooth out his delivery. It also amazes me how he can run his fastball up to triple digits with that short a stride but he has size and strength on his side and certainly is getting the results to back it up. If this kid develops a Stroman-esque slider or a hammer curve, watch out.

Relievers may not be on high priority for the Mets at this point, but if Johnson falls to the 3^rd round (i.e. the Mets fifth pick in the draft) or later, I think they should take a long look at him. He could be our closer by 2014 and the Mets could use a blue-chip closer of the future. Some experts think that he could find himself taken as early as the supplemental round but barring a dominant spring, I would doubt teams would reach that early for a liberal-arts Division-II reliever but I could be wrong.

Bottom line: A live arm like this would be great to have in the system and I would love to see the Mets take a shot with him sometime on day two.

--Stephen

Links:

Stat page at St. Edwards: http://livestats.stedwards.edu/stats/mens-baseball/stats2012/teamcume.htm

St. Edwards/Baseball America: http://www.stedwards.edu/athletics/mensbaseball/stephen-johnson-named-baseball-america-dii-preseason-pitcher-of-year-and-dii-