Re-reading Davey Johnson's 1985 book Bats now

[roger_that]

He was a very forward-thinking manager in his day, but his day now seems impossibly distant. Seriously, much of this book seems quaint, both in strategies and tactics. And Davey's use of his young players and his musings about them is at times hilariously off the mark.

[MFS62]

IIRC he was one of the first managers to maintain statistics on his own PC.
But how we interpret, then use, numbers has evolved over the years.
Later

[roger_that]

And one of the most (unintentionally?) funny blurbs I've ever read on a book jacket: "He's a great manager. But a very tough man to read"--Keith Hernandez

I'd give Keith high marks for a witty put-down, but I doubt he was being witty.

[kcmets]

Seriously, much of this book seems quaint, both in strategies and tactics.

Well, it was forty years ago.

Davey's first PC probably didn't have a hard drive but rather
just two floppy drives. A:\ and B:\. If it did have a hard drive
it was probably no bigger than 20 MB or so. Yes that's an 'M.'

[roger_that]

Seriously, much of this book seems quaint, both in strategies and tactics.

Well, it was forty years ago.

Davey's first PC probably didn't have a hard drive but rather
just two floppy drives. A:\ and B:\. If it did have a hard drive
it was probably no bigger than 20 MB or so. Yes that's an 'M.'

Well, yeah.

You might suppose that what got me started was the 40th anniversary thing, but it was just the 0th anniversary of me spotting the book in a used book store.

His take on tech was very critical of his mentor, Earl Weaver, who made some weird decisions on the basis of some notecards he kept on pitcher/batter matchups. Correctly, he mocks Weaver for relying on what came to be called "small sample size"--he would sit Don Baylor down, Davey claims, based on going 2-for-10 against someone, which drove Baylor crazy. And rightly so. But Earl thought he was way ahead of every other manager because of those little index cards.

[Edgy MD]

While Johnson and Cashen took a lot from the Orioles organization, I would think Weaver would best be described as something less than a mentor to Davey.

[kcmets]

And MS-DOS-based Lotus 1-2-3 isn't exactly rocket science over
some index cards in one's back pocket. I love Davey, but I always
thought years later his legacy as some ground-breaking computer
genius (managerially) was really 85% folklore and 15% 'maybe.'

[G-Fafif]

Davey often dropping Mookie from the leadoff slot in 1984 felt counterintuitive because the speediest guy *always* batted first in that era, but the emphasis he chose to place on OBP (which wasn’t exactly Mookie’s calling card) definitely represented innovative thinking.

[roger_that]

Weaver would best be described as something less than a mentor to Davey.

Not according to Davey. He says his first manager, Hank Bauer, was a nincompoop (who won in 1966 due to dumb luck), and then he praises at length Weaver's attitude in managing players and confronting umpires and manipulating lineups and rotations, and then (after a stay with the Braves which he glosses over, other than noting his freaky HR mark a few times) he was gone from MLB, so I don't know who you'd pick as his mentor. Maybe no one?

[batmagadanleadoff]

Davey often dropping Mookie from the leadoff slot in 1984 felt counterintuitive because the speediest guy *always* batted first in that era, but the emphasis he chose to place on OBP (which wasn’t exactly Mookie’s calling card) definitely represented innovative thinking.

That might 've been my favorite Davey Johnson Mets move ever.
It was years ahead of its time. Mookie was not a leadoff hitter, stolen bases notwithstanding. And Johnson likely learned that from Earl Weaver, the baseball genius who was obsessed with OBP.

[Frayed Knot]

Weaver once told a story about how, with the O's coming off multiple seasons with 100+ wins, Davey came into Spring Training with some data and charts and said to Earl, "Let me show you how we can fix this lineup".

[Edgy MD]

Weaver would best be described as something less than a mentor to Davey.

Not according to Davey. He says his first manager, Hank Bauer, was a nincompoop (who won in 1966 due to dumb luck), and then he praises at length Weaver's attitude in managing players and confronting umpires and manipulating lineups and rotations, and then (after a stay with the Braves which he glosses over, other than noting his freaky HR mark a few times) he was gone from MLB, so I don't know who you'd pick as his mentor. Maybe no one?

Being impressed by some aspects of somebody's work does not make them your mentor.

Being un-impressed by somebody else isn't particularly relevant.

[Edgy MD]

Earl was a smart guy, running a terrific team and running it well, but his people skills were something else.

I took my suitcase and my baseball bag, and started walking down the hallway. Just before I got to the door, there was another office on the left-hand side. I looked up and it said, “manager's office.” The door was open about six to eight inches, and I could see Earl Weaver sitting at his desk. I set my stuff down. I kinda pushed open the door a little bit and just kinda stood there in the doorway. He was writing something down at his desk and he looked up. He said, “What do you want?!” I was shocked and taken aback. I'm just trying to catch my breath basically, and went, “I just wanna let you know I'm here.” He looked at me with a blank stare and he said, “Is that all?” I said, “Yeah, that's all.”

That was June 29, 1970. I don't think he talked to me again 'til like 1972. He was not a man of many words to his players. He kinda stayed aloof. It was shocking to me. I thought that he would get up and shake my hand, congratulate me, welcome me in the big leagues, ask if I got a place to stay. You know, something warm and welcoming. It was a real shock to me. I was really taken aback to be very honest with you. I was very uncomfortable from that point on for the next two years being in a Baltimore Orioles uniform, as long as the manager was concerned. It was the strangest thing. This was the first time in my life, of all the sports I had ever played, that a coach didn't immediately warm up to me or immediately welcome me. I had no experience with that. It was the most uncomfortable thing that I had experienced in my life until that point. I didn't know how to handle it.

— Bobby Grich

[roger_that]

Being impressed by some aspects of somebody's work does not make them your mentor.

It's quite true that Earl wasn't a warm and cuddly mentoring type, nor was Davey your typical eager-beaver "Please, Master, show me how it's done" type, but Earl was his manager for the majority of his MLB career, and he obviously learned a great deal from him (including a lot of what NOT to do, what DOESN'T work). DJ tried to communicate better with his players--it's hard to see how he could have tried to communicate worse or less. But I feel comfortable with the term "mentor." Sort of like Willie Randolph and Billy Martin, another pair of second basemen who had a weird symbiotic relationship.

Anyway, to bail from this tedious boat we're on, I'd like to point out how Davey clung to Doug Sisk in 1985--there are numerous passages where he worries about Sisk's effectiveness and lack of effectiveness, offers possible solutions that never work, has frequent and circular conversations with Sisk, puts him in games in critical situations and regrets it, sits him down (and sends him down to Tidewater) in other crucial spots, and regrets it, while DJ's all-knowing readers silently scream at him "Forget Sisk! He's toast! You've got two of the greatest relievers in Mets history! Use them! Bullpen problems solved!" Meanwhile, he's worried that McDowell might be better as a starter, and is concerned about Orosco's reliability. It's an ongoing marriage on the brink of divorce with Sisk--DJ's looking for ways to get the old reliable Sisk back to 1983-84 form, and cursing him out when he walks the world to start inning after inning, but he can't accept that it's over.

Similar to Sisk, he's surprisingly dubious about Lenny Dykstra's abilities, as a defensive replacement for Mookie when Mookie gets injured, as anything more than a spray hitter--is he too young, too immature, to be on the MLB roster? Is he an improvement over his other CF options, like Terry Blocker and John Christensen? Again, I felt like shaking the book and screaming "This is fucking NAILS, you dumbass. Just bring him up permanently, and play him in center until he drops dead!" But of course I know all sorts of stuff now that the 1985 DJ had no way to know.