If you could hire a hitting coach at MSU, who would it be, and why?

[ShotgunDawg]

Johnson recruited a lot of those pitchers on that Central Arkansas team that we played in a regional a couple of years ago that were really good. Even though Johnson wasn't with the team at that time when we played them, I imagine he made an impact on their careers.

Wes Johnson is a mad man. He's from the Brent Strom/Ron Wolforth school of pitching that specializes in building bigger engines.

Most pitching coaches can be broken down into two different styles: 1. Teaching pitchers how to locate, change speeds, & throw multiple pitches for strikes. This is the style that most professional & college coaches take. 2. This group of pitching coaches build bigger engines & specialize in making the pitcher throw harder & building better, more powerful breaking balls. This group of coaches don't care as much about "pitching" as they do about building MLB prospects & stuff. Wes Johnson belongs to this group of pitching coaches & is the reason why Dallas Baptist consistently has harder throwing pitchers than most any team in America.

Personally, I prefer the second group because I think it produces higher end players and the cream rises higher. The risk of the first style is that the pitching coach focuses so much on command, control, & changing speeds, that the pitcher's stuff actually backs up over time, while the "stuff builders" have the ability to take guys and make them significantly better.

Lastly, the other beauty of the 2nd group of pitching coaches is that they are usually so in tune with bio-mechanics, flexibility, strength, twitch, etc.. that they are actually the best evaluators as well. Because of the in-depth research that they have at their disposal in order teach guys how to throw harder, they are also uniquely qualified to properly evaluate & recruit guys that have the ingredients to throw harder. Simply, they have a better idea of what they are looking for.