Davey Johnson, Mets MVP (?)

The baseball cards don't lie, right?

1984 Mets MVP Club Dave Johnson (#1)

Sabermetrics and the use of non-traditional statistics in general have become an indelible part of mainstream baseball conversations over the last decade or so.

That’s been much to the chagrin of many fans in my generation and older, of course, as it’s meant that batting average, pitcher wins, batter strikeouts, and a whole host of other stats just don’t mean what they used to.

There’s probably no going back, so this might be the time to look for someone to “blame” if you don’t enjoy the new statistical complexion of the game.

You can point a large finger at Bill James, whose Baseball Abstract books got a whole generation of baseball nerds thinking about the game in a new way. The Historical version sure kept me busy for a few weeks/months/years.

And Billy Beane shone a 21st century light on the thing by building several winning Oakland A’s teams with the change he made selling Mike Gallego and Stan Javier rookie cards. That begat Moneyball, the book and the movie, and all sorts of new cultural references.

But of course, all those men stand on the shoulders of giants who came before them, and maybe even Giants. Same as in all fields.

You could make a good case that Earl Weaver planted some seeds for the modern focus on on-base percentage and power with his love of the home run ball, for example.

And some accounts give Steve Boros credit as the first manager to use computers and Sabermetrics in-season, with the 1983 A’s.

In the course of my fandom, though, the first manager I remember to really dig into computers and work hard at playing the percentages and generally just doing things differently was Davey Johnson.

Johnson took over the Mets from big Frank Howard before the 1984 season, just in time to welcome Dwight Gooden to the big leagues and Darryl Strawberry to his sophomore season.

Those guys gave Johnson a head start on turning the team around, naturally, but that 1984 team exceeded expectations, competing with the fellow upstart Cubs for supremacy in the old National League East division.

That summer, Topps teamed up with the Mets to issue a sheet of nine baseball cards as part of the bling fans received for joining the Mets MVP Club. Seems sort of fitting that Johnson was card #1 since his arrival (along with those of Strawberry, Gooden, Gary Carter, Keith Hernandez, Ray Knight, and others) turned baseball around in Gotham.

Within two years, the Mets would be World Series champions. They won another division title in 1988 and never finished lower than second during Johnson’s tenure from 1984 through 1989.

But managerial love in baseball is a ephemeral as Brien Taylor’s prospect status, and the Mets fired Johnson less than 50 games into the 1990 season. He would go on to manage the Reds, Orioles, Dodgers, and Nationals before hanging up his skipper spikes in 2013.

Johnson’s teams finished lower than second just once, when the 1999 Dodgers finished third.

For his efforts, Johnson won two Manager of the Year Awards and a reputation as a turnaround artist who tended to wear out his welcome but kept coming back…and winning.

Today, Davey Johnson turns 81 years old. Happy birthday to a baseball trailblazer who helped deliver us into a new era…for better or for worse.

1984 and 1985 Topps Traded Empty Case

Gooden, of course, set the baseball world on its ear as a rookie in 1984, then turned the ear inside out and upside down in 1985.

This eBay lot gives you a whiff of those heady days — the cardboard essence, if you will — in the form of two empty boxes.

Yeah, these boxes once held 1984 Topps Traded and 1985 Topps Traded sets, 100 in each.

Are two empty boxes worth 40 bucks or so?

*shrug*

It’s one of those in-the-eye-of-the-beholder things. But it’s an interesting lot, at any rate. See the complete listing (not mine) here.

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I’ll leave you with a question: do you think Davey Johnson belongs in the Hall of Fame? He put up big power numbers and made several All-Star teams as a Gold Glove second baseman in the 1960s and 1970s, turned in a couple solid years in Japan, and put up a 1372-1071 (.562) record as an MLB manager.

He comes up short on Hall of Fame standards in any one area but blends the player and manager side like few others, plus he holds that legacy as a Sabermetrics-builder.

I think it’s at least an interesting case to consider.

Anyway, thanks for reading.

—Adam