(Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)First, I'll look at his batted ball profile. Despite much snark to the contrary, much of which is my own, Johnson has swung the bat this season... with marginal success. Two things are worth noting in particular - his BABIP (.182) and his xBABIP (.327). If we apply his xBABIP to his balls in play, his batting average jumps to .231. Even assuming those five extra hits were singles, his overall line would still increase to .231/.444/.327. That's still not very good, but it looks and sounds much better, in my opinion. Regardless, his line-drive percentage is solid (23.5%) and he's hitting a great deal of flyballs (44.1%), so there is room for improvement.
Second, it's worth checking out his plate discipline. As you can well imagine, Johnson's swinging at far less pitches than most major leaguers. Johnson's taken a cut at 28.6% of his offerings... the league-average is 44.5%. That's incredible. However, I was more surprised by his contact profile. When Johnson does swing, he's making contact (and solid contact, based on his liner and flyball numbers) 88.0% of pitches, versus the 80.8% league-average. That's fairly impressive, as well.
In the end, I think there's reason for optimism here. The walks are likely to keep on coming (likely at a lesser rate), and his batted ball numbers suggest that he's been unlucky thus far. While many have suggested that his bat has slowed, it seems as if that's not the case either - he's making a great deal of contact (when he does swing) and, again, he's hitting the ball well.
