Mgr. Michael Johns working hard and ready for season!
After high school, Johns played college ball at Tulane before being drafted by the Rockies in the 19th round of the 1997 draft. He played two years for their class A organization before deciding to take a different path in baseball.
Johns started back at the beginning by coaching high school baseball in Florida. After eight years of coaching high school, Johns got his chance to move back up to the majors in the Rays coaching system.
"I'm excited," Johns said, "you know obviously the last two years I was an assistant at Hudson Valley (Tampa Bay short-A affiliate) and I was a head coach in high school and once you run a program you want to be in charge. I knew after the first two years of pro ball I wanted to manage. Luckily for me the opportunity presented itself. It's a good fit for me and a good fit for the Rays, so I'm excited."
Johns, once again, is finding himself adjusting through the system of baseball.
"You deal with the same kind of problems (from high school to pros)," Johns said. "At the level I am coaching at right now you are dealing with the same age bracket with a few years difference. I think the biggest difference is the speed of the game. Guys obviously throw a lot harder, and their arm strength is a lot better in the infield and in theoutfield, guys run better."
Johns said after playing professionally he couldn't believe how slow the pace of the game was going back to high school.
"After eight years you kind of get use to that," Johns said, "and then coming back and coaching pro baseball I think that is the biggest adjustment, the speed of the game."
Johns and the rest of his coaching staff for the upcoming season are currently coaching Rays' players in extended spring training.
"We start our day at 9 a.m. and go over stretching, throwing, and then we'll do one or two team fundamentals," Johns said. "Then we'll go take batting practice and then we'll have lunch for about an hour and play a game at 1 p.m."
These are basically intersquad games. There are no scoreboards, no fans; it's strictly for player development purposes. These are games that decide where these guys are going to go."
Johns says he expects to bring a good ball team to Princeton this year based on what he is seeing from some players in spring training.
"We have a meeting to decide where some of these guys are going," Johns said, "but our say so isn't the final factor. All of the coaches at extended spring training will meet with the rest of player development, and we will give our opinions and then they will meet and then they will decide where everybody is going to play. So ultimately it's their call."
Johns will have limited time to get his team ready as players will not arrive until less than a week before the first game.
"We have had a lot of these guys in extended spring training since about March 8 or 9," Johns said. "A lot of these guys will either go to Hudson Valley, Princeton, or the Gulf Coast League and then we will get some of the guys from the draft."
The draft starts Monday June 7th, the Rays have three picks in the first round including the 17th overall pick.
"It is difficult, and you really won't know your team until a couple of days before," Johns said. "You feel like they should be prepared either way, whether they've been playing college ball, high school ball, or playing with us, as long as they have been playing we should be okay."
Rookie level ball has to be one of the hardest jobs for a manager. Johns has the difficult task of putting a team of payers together who are from different levels and have limited or no playing time with each other, and still he has to try and win games.
"You definitely want to win," Johns said." I think winning breeds winning. On the other hand you can't sacrifice a player's development to win. You don't pinch hit for a prospect just to get the right match up and you don't bring in a pitcher to get a better match up, you're going to leave your guy out there to get his pitches in. This is really for their development and it's not for the glorification of the manager to get wins at all."
Johns also knows many of his pitchers will be on a strict pitch count depending on how much they have pitched in college or high school. He still remains positive and ready for this upcoming season and believes the Rays will put together an exciting and good team for the fans in Princeton.
"I'm really excited (to coach in Princeton)," Johns said. "I've heard nothing but good things about Princeton. It has a small town atmospherewhere everybody kind of supports each other. Everybody is really friendly and it's a good environment."
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