Neither are his peers, though.
The Jim Johnson experiment in Oakland is now at an end, as the Athletics designated the $10 million reliever for assignment after a disastrous half-season. It wasn't supposed to be an experiment at all, though: the A's acquired Johnson from the Orioles this past winter because they had a need at closer and had the money, and Johnson -- in theory -- had the ability. While it hasn't damaged the A's season much -- they're leading the majors in both wins and winning percentage -- Johnson's 2014 does serve as a reminder that relievers are relatively unpredictable and just having money to spend isn't enough on its own.
Relievers aren't fungible, so if you've come looking for a screed criticizing the A's for spending money on a closer, you're in the wrong place. Huge amounts of money for a closer, though, should probably be reserved for the best of the best: From 2008 through 2013, Johnson posted a 148 ERA+ in relief over 395 innings, good for 13th in the majors, minimum 300 innings, in that stretch.The $10 million he was set to make thanks to arbitration is a number that is in part inflated by his saves totals -- he led the AL in both 2012 and 2013 as the O's stopper -- but overall, when you look at his body of work outside the saves, he seems as if he had earned the chance to make eight figures, probably more so than some of those who have pulled off the same feat.
The Orioles disagreed, obviously, but it's not like they have a stellar track record with pitching, especially not in comparison to the A's: they needed to move Johnson so they'd have a place to use their failed starting pitching prospects besides Triple-A yet again. (And so they could have money to sign Nelson Cruz, but that ruins the joke.)
The 2013 season was up there with some of Johnson's best work, as he brought his strikeout rate back over seven per nine and punched out three times as many batters as he walked, while keeping the ball in the park despite home games in a stadium designed to do the opposite. He also managed to do all of this with a .330 batting average on balls in play, a figure so lofty it hinted that a better, luckier future awaited. His relatively low 85-percent saves conversion rate (50 saves, nine blown saves) seemingly went hand in hand with the high BABIP. Instead, it might have been an omen of things to come. Johnson's command and control both vanished this summer, with his walk rate more than doubling to over five per nine and his home run rate rocketing to 1.1 despite the switch to a friendlier environment.
Photo credit: Duane Burleson
That 2013 BABIP might have just been the start of something that Johnson didn't pay for over his 70 innings of relief, but when that something wasn't fixed a year later, things went to hell: Johnson posted a .396 BABIP in his 40-odd innings with the A's, nearly 100 points higher than his career number and even further ahead of the O.co average.
Johnson has lost a little bit of velocity, and PITCHf/x suggests his two-seam fastball went from a reliable offering to a garbage pitch since 2012 came to a close. As a reliever who relied on grounders and the defense behind him, Johnson's inability to put his two-seamer where it needed to go meant his immediate downfall, and an Athletics' defense with Jed Lowrie and Brandon Moss around probably didn't help matters. Even if they were all-world with the glove, though, there was no saving this iteration of Johnson from his own failings.
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This happens, not just with relievers, but with all players at some point. You just have to hope you're not stuck footing the bill for anyone's unraveling, but it happens, even to Billy Beane. In fact, it could happen more often now that the A's have more money to play with. The A's were shielded from players like Johnson in the past, expensive players with obvious flaws they managed to mask or transiently overcome. In Johnson's case, that's a lack of swing-and-miss in his game and a reliance on hitting his spots. It's not a bad thing while you're still inducing grounders and keeping the ball low, but it can get ugly in a hurry when you can't hit your spots and can't miss any bats to compensate for it. The A's took shots on this kind of player in the past, but they wouldn't spend $10 million, either: credit the Athletics and Beane for spending the extra money sent their way thanks to MLBAM's shrewd media negotiating, but they'd probably prefer if we could credit them for spending it wisely.
The A's should keep spending money in the future, because not everyone with a significant price tag is going to bust on them. The expensive busts are just more noticeable, and it's sometimes harder to get them out of their roles. The A's spent money to add a closer to a roster that was already filled out, though, so in a relative sense, they got off light here, even if it was an expensive failure. It's just money, and the A's will have more of it to spend as soon as 2015, because Johnson was only a one-year commitment.
Plus, Beane's going to look smart when the Rays pick up Johnson on the A's tab and he suddenly pitches like it's his peak again. Of course, that will just be making up for their own expensive closer signing of the man Jim Johnson replaced, Grant Balfour. Baseball is mean like that.
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