Georgia released the salary of new baseball coach Wes Johnson after an open records request from UGASports.
Johnson will earn a base salary of $700,000 in his first season as the Bulldog baseball coach. Former head coach Scott Stricklin made $600,550 a year before being fired after 10 years.
The contract is a six-year deal. Johnson was paid a base salary of $380,000 at LSU. He will remain with the Tigers until LSU is finished in the NCAA Tournament. LSU hosts Kentucky in the best-of-three Super Regional this weekend in Baton Rouge.
The veteran coach takes over the Bulldogs' job after spending one season as the pitching coach at LSU, which followed a three-plus year stint as a successful pitching coach for the Minnesota Twins.
He has also served as the pitching coach at Mississippi State and Arkansas, enjoying success at both perennial SEC powers.
Johnson is wrapping up his first year as the pitching coach for the Tigers, after joining LSU in the middle of the 2022 season while serving as the pitching coach for the Minnesota Twins, where he served since 2019.
The 51-year-old Johnson has worked as a collegiate pitching coach since 2008 before joining the Twins and becoming the first pitching coach in MLB history to make the move directly from the college ranks to the big leagues. Johnson was with Minnesota for three-plus years, prior to joining the LSU program last June.
His first Twins staff in 2019 set a club record with 1,463 strikeouts, and he helped lead the team to back-to-back AL Central Division titles in 2019 and 2020. The 2020 Twins staff established a club record for strikeouts-per-nine-innings-pitched (9.38).
During his tenure as a college coach, 30 of Johnson’s pitchers have been drafted by MLB teams, with current Tiger pitcher Paul Skene expected to be one of the top two picks in the upcoming draft.
Prior to accepting the job with the Twins, he was the pitching coach at Arkansas in 2017 and 2018, helping lead the Razorbacks to a national runners-up finish at the 2018 College World Series.
Johnson developed Arkansas ace right-hander Blaine Knight, who posted a 14-0 record in 2018 and was selected in the third round of the MLB Draft by the Baltimore Orioles.
At Mississippi State in 2016, Johnson produced six pitchers that were selected in the MLB Draft, most notably Dakota Johnson as the 34th overall selection by the St. Louis Cardinals. After Mississippi State won only eight SEC games the season prior to Wes Johnson’s arrival, the 2016 Bulldogs captured the SEC regular-season title and advanced to an NCAA Super Regional.
Johnson also served as the pitching coach at Dallas Baptist for four seasons. While there, five of his pitchers were chosen in the first 12 rounds of the 2015 Draft, and he helped lead the Patriots to NCAA Regional appearances in three of his four seasons at DBU (2012-15). The 2014 Dallas Baptist staff set school records for strikeouts (506) and opponent batting average (.248).
Johnson served as the pitching coach for three seasons (2008, 2010-11) at Central Arkansas, where his hurlers set school records for ERA, WHIP, strikeouts, opponent batting average, and fewest walks.
