No college teammates have ever been chosen with the top two picks of the MLB Draft.
Some have come close — UCLA’s Gerrit Cole and Trevor Bauer went No. 1 and No. 3, respectively, in 2011, and same with Arizona State’s Bob Horner and Hubie Brooks in 1978 — but barring some sort of shocking development, history will be made Sunday.
LSU teammates Dylan Crews and Paul Skenes — a dynamic outfielder and dominating starter — are expected to go with the top two picks in the draft. Which order will they go? That’s really the only drama. And their manager, Jay Johnson, will be there to see it unfold first-hand. Johnson is joining the MLB Network broadcast live in Seattle on Sunday.
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Both Crews and Skenes entered the 2023 college season with immense amounts of hype — individually and with their team — and somehow they managed to exceed even those lofty expectations. LSU was the preseason No. 1 team, and the Tigers won the national title.
Crews was a consensus first-team All-American as a sophomore in 2022 after batting .349 with 22 home runs and a 1.154 OPS. This spring, he won the Golden Spikes Award, given to the best player in college baseball, with a .426 average, 18 homers and a 1.280 OPS, which included a mind-boggling .567 on-base percentage.
Skenes transferred in from Air Force, where he was a two-way star in 2021 and 2022. At LSU he focused solely on pitching, and he was the best pitcher in the college game: He struck out 209 batters in 122 2/3 innings, posting a 1.69 ERA as LSU’s Friday night pitcher.
Johnson chatted about both players — and his MLB Network debut as a draft analyst — with The Sporting News this week.
The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
THE SPORTING NEWS: Life has been pretty good for you lately, I imagine. What’s life like for you now, with that title under your belt?
JAY JOHNSON: I knew this team was special throughout the year, and I really tried to appreciate what was happening while it was happening. It’s one of those times where you know you’re living the best days of your life while you’re living them. That’s how I feel about these guys. Really proud of them for the season that we had and obviously winning the national championship because they were a worthy champion every single day of this thing.
TSN: A season like that doesn’t end necessarily with the last out. It lives on, and for you part of that is being on MLB Network and getting to see up close two of your guys going right to the top of the draft.
JOHNSON: It’ll be pretty special. Obviously, it’s always about the team, but I have a different view maybe on things. Like, obviously, we want to win and we want to win championships, but how we do that is really important to me, and you do that through development. So to see Dylan and Paul, or Paul and Dylan, go as the first two picks in the draft is something that I’m really proud of them for because they’re unbelievable players and very worthy of being selected up there. And they’re Hall of Fame people. Whatever team gets them is going to have a different organization immediately, not just because of the talent they’re adding but the person they’re adding.
TSN: That’s cool. I want to ask you a little about each guy. You came from Arizona to LSU and Dylan was already coming off that amazing freshman year. I’m sure you knew all about him, but what were some of your first impressions about seeing him in person?
JOHNSON: I’ve said this before, but he was definitely a reason I accepted this job, because I knew how special a player he was, and to have him for two years. I knew that’s not something that comes along in your coaching career all the time. First impressions of him? I remember when he pulled his name out of the draft in high school. As a college coach, when a player who is that good does that, there’s a different appreciation level for them. It’s so hard to compete with Major League Baseball, which, essentially, when it comes to the draft, that’s what we’re doing.
TSN: Right.
JOHNSON: So here’s a guy that bet on himself, who I already knew was a great player. And then just seeing it up close in person every day — the player, the person, the humility, just the consistency, is remarkable. I’m not sure we’ll ever see something like it again in college baseball, to be honest with you.
MORE: MLB Mock Draft: Where will Dylan Crews and Paul Skenes wind up?
TSN: You’ve had the chance to coach a lot of a lot of good players, as assistant and as a head coach, guys who went on to have success in the bigs. I’m sure you get asked this, but is there’s someone that he reminds you of who you’ve coached before?
JOHNSON: Him and Kris Bryant are in a class by themselves of players that I’ve had. They’re different, maybe a little different style of players, different positions, but the common thread is they do everything great on the baseball field. And the type of person they are is a complete outlier in terms of humility, team-first work ethic, then strong mental game. I think those are the areas that they’re the most alike.
TSN: I kind of figured he might be the guy you picked. He was pretty decent, eh?
JOHNSON: I’ve had a lot of big leaguers, but he’s clearly the best. And Dylan is the only guy that’s remotely in that category.
TSN: When you look at Dylan's stats, obviously the average batting average jumped way up, the on-base percentage jumped way up. Was that something you guys talked about before this season? Like you said, “OK, this is how you can be a better overall hitter.” What was some of that stuff he worked on.
JOHNSON: I appreciate that question. Some of that stuff doesn’t get asked a lot. So, the thought or theme for him going into the year was, you’re gonna have a great season no matter what. Like, we could do nothing and you’re gonna have a great season. The only way you don’t have an elite season is if you try to do too much or you get outside of your plan. So what would that look like? That would be expanding the strike zone, creating a lot of effort in your swing. If you don’t do that, and stay under control of your plan and yourself, you legitimately will make a run at hitting .500. And until about May 1, that is absolutely what he did. It’s one of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen, for him to stay committed to his process, his plan, not get outside of himself and execute it. And then the talent just took over.
TSN: Let’s talk about that .576 on-base percentage. I know we see some big numbers in college sometimes, but that’s crazy-talk type of stuff, that kind of number. I guess that’s kind of a reflection on his teammates, because he knows he’s not gonna get pitches sometimes and like you said, he doesn’t expand the zone, he takes what they give him and he does damage with what he has, right?
JOHNSON: Yes, absolutely. I can’t say it any better than you just set it right there. There are so many positive elements to his game that maybe don’t show up on the stat line, like his willingness to do whatever we needed, which sometimes was that. He’s a terrific clutch hitter. He could have stolen a lot more bases and, frankly, the only reason he didn’t is because I didn’t want to get him hurt, because of all the other value.
TSN: That makes sense. With Paul, were there times this year when he really missed hitting? He was a pretty good hitter at Air Force.
JOHNSON: I’ll start with the end, which was the probably the funniest moment of the entire College World Series. We were hitting the top of the ninth, and we’re clearly going to win the game. Somebody tapped me on the shoulder and I turn around and he’s standing there with a bat in his hand, over his shoulder, and a batting helmet on. I was like, “You know what? Why don’t you go back down to the bottom of the steps. You not hitting all season worked out really well for everybody.”
But we never really had a conversation about it, which sounds strange. I’ll tell you what I noticed. In the fall, he was making a massive jump, in terms of velocity, in terms of command, in terms of the secondary pitches, particularly the slider. And the recovery from one outing to the next was better. And so the thought process for me was eliminating the rotation and the load on his body was actually really, really helping him, so we kind of tabled it. We came up with a hitting schedule.
TSN: Right.
JOHNSON: Then, I’ll never forget this: Like 10 days before the season, I sent him up there to take some at-bats in an intersquad game, only against the left-handed pitcher, where the ball would be moving away from him so he wouldn’t get hit. And I just had a pit in my stomach every time he was up there. I was like, I don’t know if we can do this. And then I started thinking with how well he was pitching — like, this guy’s gonna get nine and a half million dollars in a few months if he stays healthy, and I just can’t have somebody lose a fastball and break his finger and take that away from him, or take that away from our team. We never really had a conversation about it, but that kind of encapsulates the thought process of how we got there.
MORE: 2023 MLB Draft order: Full list of picks
TSN: Like Dylan, he was already elite at what he did, but what were some of the things that he did to be even better? Was it focusing on specific pitches? Was it film study? What were some of the things he did?
JOHNSON: Well, one more thought on the hitting thing. Had I him hit, he would have hit 25 home runs this year. That’s how good a hitter he actually is.
TSN: I’m sure, especially in that lineup.
JOHNSON: But going back to what you asked, I think he mastered what he needed to do from the last pitch of, let’s say, the Friday start to the first pitch of the next Friday start. He mastered his schedule of day-after, blending all the things in: weightlifting, massage, recovery, reboot to throwing midweek bullpen, scouting report, preparation. This guy is the most elite I’ve ever seen at that, his self discipline from coming from the United States Air Force Academy bled into that process, and nobody will ever be better than he was. So I would start there.
The slider really, really improved. We got him throwing like right when he got here, and we stopped him throwing a little earlier than everybody else in the fall because we really went to work on that. And he did a great job with that. I think his understanding of what he needed to do to get to the next rung on the ladder of improvement, he was obsessed and is obsessed with that. And that’s a total credit to Paul and his character and his makeup. Dominating the routine, establishing recovery, improving the slider and constantly being able to get to that next click of, you know, deception, command, pitchability — he did all of that in the course of this year.
TSN: As for you, getting ready to be on the MLB Network draft telecast, have you collected stories or snippets that maybe you’ve saved and you’re gonna bust out on the broadcast? How are you approaching that?
JOHNSON: I’m just so proud of both of them. It can be boiled down to this: Let’s just say the Pittsburgh and Washington organizations are going to be changed by drafting either of these guys. It doesn’t matter who goes first and who goes second. It’s an elite, future All-Star player or pitcher that is a Hall of Fame human being. But I’m really excited for Harold (Reynolds) to ask me questions and to talk about them, because they really deserve to be talked about
TSN: You’re gonna give input on other guys who are going to be drafted, too, right? Did you have to do some research and study up on some of those guys, or is it gonna be mostly guys you have played against?
JOHNSON: I have a really good head start, actually. When they gave me the list of who to be prepared to talk about yesterday, the amount of guys that we played this year, it actually made the national championship more meaningful, with the amount of first-round picks we played against this year. You’re talking about Rhett Lowder, Chase Dollander, Wyatt Langford. I mean, we played all of these guys. Chase Davis, I recruited and coached at Arizona. I’m really looking forward to the opportunity and I think it’s a great showcase for how good college baseball is right now.
TSN: Omaha really had just a ton of great players, high draft picks there.
JOHNSON: Yeah, it was truly amazing. It felt like the whole tournament was guys who will be a first-rounder either this year or next year,
TSN: Which, I guess, gives you more appreciation for what you guys were able to accomplish, right? It wasn’t like you’ve been a couple of Cinderellas that have been playing over their head or something.
JOHNSON: Yeah, absolutely.