When Davey Johnson went from special assistant to the General Manager to take over midseason in 2011 as the manager of the Washington Nationals, the team would go to places they had never been before: The Playoffs. In 2012, the Nats stunned the baseball world by not only winning the NL East — they also set a franchise record with 98 wins in the regular season.
Of course Johnson had won two World Series as a player with the Baltimore Orioles in 1966 and 1970, and then he won a World Series as the manager of the 1986 New York Mets. He would retired at the age of 70 in 2013 as the manager of the Nationals, and it was the way he did more with less. Players like Ian Desmond turned into a star under Johnson during that magical 2012 season. He had Bryce Harper that year as a rookie, and Gio Gonzalez in his first season with the team. And of course he had Mr. National, Ryan Zimmerman, at the hot corner.
❝
— Zimmerman said
An incredible baseball life and an even better man. Davey Johnson helped set the tone and foundation for our success — and I am forever grateful for the lessons he shared with me in our seasons together in DC. RIP Skip🙏
❞
Perhaps Johnson’s toughest assignment in that 2012 season was circumnavigating the Stephen Strasburg “shutdown.” That elevated Gonzalez to his No. 1 starter, Jordan Zimmermann to his No. 2, and Edwin Jackson, Ross Detwiler, and John Lannan would complete the rest of that rotation. Baseball recognized Johnson in 2012 with the Manager of the Year award.
From 2011-2013, Davey Johnson had a 224-183 W/L record and a .550 winning percentage with Washington. Some would consider that 2012 season as the best managerial regular season in Nats’ history because he didn’t have a stacked roster. The Nats were projected to win 84 games that year.
It was the way he was doing analytics in baseball before that term was coined. With a college degree in mathematics, Johnson would be in manager Earl Weaver‘s ear back in the late 1960s with his analytical ideas. When Johnson wanted to learn about computers, he enrolled in classes at Johns Hopkins University between the 1968 and 1969 baseball seasons, while he was an active player for the Baltimore Orioles. Using his computer knowledge, Johnson created a program to analyze the Orioles’ statistics. His program, called “Optimization of the Orioles Lineup,” was a very early version of what some would say is a part of modern analytics and sabermetrics.
You could say Johnson was way ahead of the curve in statistical analysis. He was always destined to manage and got his first managerial job in 1984 with the Mets and won 90 games. While he managed five different teams, his Nationals’ managerial tenure was his second longest after the Mets. He had the 6th-highest winning percentage (.562) of all of the managers who won at least games.
Today, Johnson was 82.60 years old. You have to have the precise math on that. If you have 82 wins in a season, it’s considered a winning season. Davey Johnson was a winner. A baseball legend.
