WaPo—Boswell: Davey Johnson is in the midst of one of his best seasons

90% of Boz’s column is about Davey’s management of the bench and bullpen in late innings (and is RTFA stuff), but it’s his conclusion that provides the best argument-fodder:

It seems curious that Johnson’s baseball legacy is still so unfinished. He has the second-highest winning percentage of any living manager with more than six seasons’ experience, behind only Earl Weaver. Of all the men who have managed 1,000 games since 1900, only six have a better record than Johnson. All are in the Hall of Fame. The average Johnson team in his 16 years has gone 91-71. And he’s done it while taking over five different clubs, all of them mediocre to miserable when he got there. Counting the Nats, four became big winners.

So, it’s hard to believe Johnson’s talents aren’t fully appreciated. But they aren’t. He was out of the majors for 11 years, partly because of a period of very bad health, partly by choice, but also because the phone didn’t ring. He was great at handling players. Nationals General Manager Mike Rizzo says, “Davey is so good at handling players that most of them don’t know they’re being handled.” But who was going to handle Davey? Now, that no longer seems a problem.

Perhaps this last time around the track, with the Nationals, it will be the final performance that brings Johnson into clear focus. Beneath the grandfatherly appearance and the Texas twang, the harder you examine his latest work, the better his final baseball portrait looks.