Brewers promote Johnson to amateur scouting director

MILWAUKEE — The Brewers have promoted Tod Johnson, who worked for Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard before his career in baseball, to amateur scouting director in a move that further cements the club’s commitment to analytics.

Johnson, 43, takes over administration of the Draft from Ray Montgomery, who will have broader responsibilities as vice president of scouting. Pro scouting director Zack Minasian is moving into an advisory role within the department.

“I think it’s a re-evaluation on the whole of our scouting group, and trying our best to put our skill sets in the right spots,” said general manager David Stearns, who inherited all three men from the Brewers’ previous front-office regime. “A year into this, I’ve had the opportunity to learn a lot about our staff. I’m frankly very pleased with what I’ve seen.”

That is reflected, Stearns said, by the fact Johnson emerged from a field of seven internal and external candidates for the amateur scouting director vacancy. Johnson is in his ninth season in Milwaukee’s front office, the past six as assistant amateur scouting director. His media guide bio says part of Johnson’s job was working with the baseball research and development department to set the direction for the usage of data and technology in baseball operations — in other words, using objective metrics to evaluate amateur players in addition to the traditional scouting …

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