For Mets Manager Davey Johnson, Just Winning Isn’t Enough

Managing the New York Mets has become a paradox for Davey Johnson. He resides in a world where winning is burdensome.

He keeps winning, yet faces constant questions about why he doesn’t win more. He keeps winning, yet his job status hinges, perhaps, on his tenuous relationship with his boss. He keeps winning, and although winning is considered the criteria for judging great managers, he’s never mentioned even among the best of his peers.

“There are more rewards winning when you’re not expected to than winning when you are expected to,” Johnson said.

In 1984, Johnson won when he wasn’t supposed to. In 1988, he is still winning. But, in between, success has created monstrous expectations for Johnson and his team. And during that time Johnson’s relationship with the man who hired him, Mets General Manager Frank Cashen, has worsened to the point Johnson believes the only way he’ll be back for a sixth season as Met manager is to guide the team to victory in the World Series this year.

“The perception I have gotten when I’ve spoken to the powers that be has led me to believe that,” Johnson said. “I’m comfortable in not knowing whether I’ll manage next year. I guess they’re (management) comfortable not knowing, as well.”

Cashen denied that Johnson’s job rest on a World Series title.

“His status, we agreed, would be discussed in the postseason,” Cashen said. “Until then we both had agreed to have no comment. But, I’ve never expressed to him or anyone the thought he would have to win a World Series to be back. I would have to be crazy to say that. I’ve tried to say as little as possible about the whole situation.”

Cashen refused to discuss what Johnson needed to do to keep his job. Mike Cubbage, the manager of the Mets’ Triple-A Tidewater team, is considered the leading candidate to replace Johnson.

Trouble grew between Cashen and Johnson in 1987 amid a season of dissension and disappointment for the whole team. A source says Johnson was hedging on whether he would return for the final season of his three-year contract.

Cashen fumed when, late in the season, Johnson began airing disappointment over not getting a new contract while the Mets were struggling futilely to catch St. Louis in the NL East. Finally, the team announced Johnson would be back to manage for one final season, then take another job in the organization. But this spring that plan became muddled when Cashen said Johnson could return as manager.

The problem is clear for Cashen. He has a manager that has bettered 90 wins in each of his four seasons and should do so again. And, also a manager that potentially could bring a second World Series title in three years. How do you fire such a man?

“Things happen for the best,” said Johnson, 45. “Whatever happens will happen for the best. You could look at anything optimistically. If I’m not back here next year, it might add five to 10 years to my life. It’s all how you look at things. The object is to make the situation work for you.”

However, the situation Johnson finds himself in is, of course, paradoxical. He has an experienced team that, on paper, should run away with the NL East title. But the young Pittsburgh Pirates are holding tight. Johnson’s team was near the top of the NL in runs scored, yet has spent much of the last two months deep in a hitting slump. Most Mets regard him as a players’ manager, yet there has been frequent miscommunication between players and manager in Johnson’s tenure.

“I think he’s an excellent manager,” Pirates General Manager Syd Thrift said. “He wins games. What else could you want?”

Johnson has won at every level.

As a major-league second baseman he reached four All-Star Games and helped Baltimore to reach four World Series and win two of them. He batted cleanup as the Tokyo Giants won the Japanese World Series in one of his two years overseas. He managed two years in the Mets’ farm system, and won titles at Double-A and Triple-A.

When he arrived in New York, the Mets had completed consecutive last-place finishes. In his first year his team went 90-72 as he relied on many of the young players he had tutored in the minors. The team followed by going 98-64, 108-54 in the World Series year and 92-70 last year as injuries wrecked the pitching staff and moral problems hindered the team. The Mets completed play Aug. 4 this year at 64-43, 3 1/2 games ahead of Pittsburgh.

“Of course, he’s a top manager,” said ABC baseball broadcaster Jim Palmer, an Oriole teammate of Johnson. “But what’s the criteria? People always say Gene Mauch was a great manager, but what did he ever win? Don’t get me wrong, I admire Gene Mauch, but when he managed you could feel his hand in the game, like it was chess. Davey is much more subtle.”

Johnson angers his detractors with his admitted stubbornness, sticking with players and strategies he believes in even in times of slumps and predictability. He is considered a good evaluator of talent, but a bench manager who lacks flair.

“If I have a fault as a manager, I probably have too much confidence in my players,” Johnson said. “I give them more opportunities to succeed than other managers. But the fans are like Japanese people; they like every day to be handled like a war, not like one day in a war. The Japanese put the whole kitchen sink into one battle. You might win the battle and lose the war. Fans like that.

“Even at the expense of being second-guessed by eight million people I’ll do what I think is right. I can’t change my style any more than Billy Martin could change his.”

But Johnson may find out, like Martin, a paradox of managing in New York is winning is everything, and yet sometimes it’s not enough.