Randy Johnson talks Paul Skenes, elbow injuries and ‘Bad News Bears’: ‘What we’re seeing has been done before’

Hall of Famer Randy Johnson was one of the greatest and most intimidating pitchers in baseball history. He won five Cy Youngs, won 303 games and led the league in strikeouts nine times. 

For several years after his retirement, he went quiet. That was by design. 

“I retired after the 2009 season and in 2010, married and with my kids, [I was] just trying to give back time that I had been giving baseball,” Johnson, 60, told CBS Sports. “The one commitment I did have was when I got really involved in the USO tours. The first tour I went on 2010 and I went all the way to 2019, so for nine years, I went all over the world supporting our men and women and that came about because a friend of mine that goes on these tours was in charge of getting the celebrities or high-profile athletes and he asked me if I wanted to do it and I said I’d love to do it when I retire, I can give my time then.

“When I started doing a few things, more opportunities came from that.” 

Enter his newest opportunity: Coaching a sub-par youth baseball team in a promotion with the California-based steakhouse Sizzler. 

“The whole premise was they weren’t unfortunately a very good team, basically like ‘The Bad News Bears’ of the ’70s and I’m playing Walter Matthau, if you will,” Johnson said. “It was really pretty cool to be out there and watch their effort and their excitement and their exhilaration and their camaraderie among one another.” 

“Basically they filmed the kids falling down in the outfield and striking out and throwing their glove down and I’m kinda like, you know — when they’re filming me — slapping my hands together and telling them to run fast. I really enjoyed it. It was one of the more fun commercials I’ve done. It was all in good spirits.”

Despite his iconic status, Johnson admitted that he didn’t think the players, most of whom were between 6 and 8 years old, had any idea who he was.

“I’ve been retired for 14 years and they were pretty young,” he said.

CBS Sports also had the opportunity to discuss the current game of Major League Baseball with the legendary lefty, beginning with the rash of injuries that Johnson was able to avoid for most of his career; in parts of 22 seasons in the majors, he threw more than 200 innings in 14 of them. Back problems and a torn rotator cuff stole time from Johnson, but he managed to avoid any major issues with his elbow.

“For every 15 Tommy John surgeries that are happening in today’s game, there might’ve been one every year in my era, that I heard of,” Johnson said.

“I don’t think it has anything to do with velocity. You know, I threw 95 to 100, Nolan Ryan threw hard, Pedro Martinez threw hard, Roger Clemens threw hard, there’s lots of pitchers that threw hard and none of them had Tommy John surgery. And they all threw a lot more than today’s pitchers. They would throw 250-260 innings and 135 pitches a game, so I don’t know why there are so many injuries in today’s game, I really don’t.” 

And then there’s Paul Skenes, the rookie sensation whom Johnson met recently when the Pirates were in Arizona. Even with a Rookie of the Year award practically ties up and a Cy Young not that far out of the realm of possibility, Skenes will not come close to those 250 innings in his rookie year, or likely ever.

“I’ve seen him pitch, yeah, the hype for his age, he’s pretty unbelievable for 22, but Dwight Gooden was pretty unbelievable, too. And even maybe more so because of what he actually accomplished throughout the whole year, what the stats were at the end of the year, as far as wins, ERA and strikeouts at the same age,” Johnson told CBS Sports. “What we’re seeing has been done before, I just think that — like I told him — ‘pitchers like yourself come along every 10-15 years, there’s been lots of great pitchers’ and it’s just unfortunate that a pitcher like him may not be as great as he can be because there are restrictions on him in today’s game.”

When Johnson saw Skenes in Arizona, the latter threw 5 1/3 innings, allowing two earned runs on five hits and exactly 100 pitches. Across 15 starts this season, Skenes has worked 92 innings, averaging just over six innings a game. He’s hit the 100-pitch barrier seven times, but hasn’t thrown more than 107. 

“If he could’ve gone another inning, he might’ve gotten that win, because as soon as he came out, the next guy gave up three runs. And that’s what I told him, when I met him. ‘The organization, Paul, is going to dictate what you are gonna do and if you wanna have a real career, if you become the pitcher that everybody thinks you’re going to be, you will have a lot of say in what you want to do, whereas a lot of pitchers don’t have that say, but you will,’” Johnson said. 

“If winning ball games is important to you and your legacy is important at the end of your career, you’re going to have to go more than five or six innings every time out. And I get that he’s 22 years old, so, you know, let him get his rookie year under his belt. But Dwight Gooden won 19 games his rookie year and won Rookie of the Year and the Cy Young, too, and had like 250, 260 strikeouts. That was a pretty special year and I don’t think anybody is ever going to be as good as his rookie year, or at least nobody has been yet.

“He’s definitely special, but in today’s game, he’s going to be held back for the rest of this year and maybe next year. But if you want to be the pitcher that you’re capable of being, you need to step up and show people what you’re capable of doing and voice your opinion, because going five or six innings you’re not going to win very many ballgames in today’s game. You’re gonna have to go seven or eight innings and you’re not going to hurt yourself because the game has been around for 150 years and people went 7-8 innings all the time and they threw 115-135 pitches. You just have to mold your body and your body needs to become accustomed to that kind of workload. That’s all it is.” 

As for a modern change that Johnson does approve of, the pitch clock earned rave reviews.

“I think the big benefit is what it was meant to do is quicken the games up and I think that’s good. I think it’s better that pitchers get on the mound and pitch. When you’re in the flow of the game, that’s what you want to do anyway. When you’re walking around the mound and kicking dirt, you’re just trying to buy time for the guy in the bullpen to come in and replace you because you’re not pitching well,” Johnson told CBS Sports. “If you’re throwing well, you want to continue to do that and you want to continue to stay in a rhythm. It’s the hitter that usually steps out and keeps trying to get you out of your rhythm. So I don’t have a problem with it at all.”