Smooth Move To The Pen For Pierce Johnson?

MESA, Ariz.—Has righthander Pierce Johnson gone from struggling minor league starter to the next Wade Davis?

Not yet. But early in spring training, Cubs manager Joe Maddon made it sound like that’s what could be coming for the first pitcher drafted by the organization under president of baseball operations Theo Epstein.

After a late-season move to the bullpen at Triple-A Iowa last year, Johnson arrived at big league camp this spring as a full-time reliever.

“It’s a different look. It’s a different animal all of a sudden,” Maddon said. “What he had done last year once they put him in the pen, (he showed) the typical uptick (in velocity). (It was) kind of like a Wade Davis thing.”

Davis, the closer whom the Cubs acquired from the Royals in December for Jorge Soler, became one of the game’s best closers once the Rays moved him to the bullpen.

“I’ve heard nothing but good stuff out of the bullpen with (Johnson),” Maddon said. “Nothing but good stuff.”

Johnson, a 2012 supplemental first-round pick out of Missouri State, always has thrown hard with a breaking ball he calls his best pitch. But command problems plagued him once he reached Double-A Tennessee in 2014.

“I think the conviction factor for me was the biggest thing,” said Johnson, 25. “As a starter I wasn’t necessarily timid when I was throwing, but the conviction wasn’t necessarily there for me. So being in the pen, just letting it go as hard as I can and trying to throw my breaking ball—I think I can live off those two (pitches) and mix in a changeup—but I really think that’s what clicked for me.”

About moving to the bullpen, he said it “gives me the freedom to just be myself and just let my pitches do what they can.”

Johnson ran up a 7.75 ERA in 11 starts last year but recorded 35 strikeouts, 13 walks and a .176 opponent average in 22.1 relief innings.

CUBBYHOLE

• For all the talk of pitching depth, a quiet success story has developed with the return from shoulder-debridement surgery of lefthander Zac Rosscup. “My expectations are just to be healthy,” he said.

• Ian Happ, the 2015 first-round pick, came out swinging in his first big league camp. He hit .405 through 19 games. “Everybody talks about how everybody’s here and the (minor league) cupboard is bare,” Maddon said. “Not true.”

— Gordon Wittenmyer covers the Cubs for the Chicago Sun-Times