One thing that should be noted is that while the Mets only won one championship with Davey at the helm, a couple of Hall of Fame managers (that Davey is often compared to, for different reasons) Earl Weaver and Whitey Herzog only won one championship as well, Weaver's in 1970 and Herzog's in 1982. Yet they are in the Hall, and here we are debating.Another observation is that former Mets skipper Joe Torre won four championships while managing the Yankees, and yet a lot of people who posted about him here consider him to be lucky to have managed such talented teams and not as good as his record, a Casey Stengel of the late 1990s if you will.
And yet the Yankees of the '90s did exactly what the Mets tried to do and failed. They won in '96. '98, '99, and 2000. Imagine if the Mets had won it all in '86, '88, swept the series in '89, and then won it in five in '90? Davey would be looked upon as, well, just as loveable as a senile Casey Stengel.
I think the reason there is a debate is the same reason people were on Strawberry's back throughout his Mets career, and even why the bottom-feeding NY Daily News had a bitter blowhard bait Tom Seaver back in '77. In New York, everything is elevated and accentuated, overblown and overwritten about.
That's why the question of whether Davey was great or not is even a question. If he had managed in Baltimore or St. Louis and won them a championship, I don't think they would be having this discussion. Maybe I'm wrong though. For me the biggest mistake Davey ever made, and perhaps the only reason we are having this debate, is because he left Dwight Gooden in to pitch to John Shelby and Mike Scoscia.
More than that mistake though, the biggest reason the Mets didn't win more than one is not Davey or drugs or unauthorized female Mets fans in the clubhouse; it was Frank Cashen.
Frank built that 1986 team up beautifully, just to tear it apart. Not keeping that team intact for 1987 was a gross unforced error that cost the Mets more than anything Davey ever did.
Also, Frank Cashen insisting Doc miss all of May 1987 with pointless minor league rehab appearances was another reason they finished 3 games out that year. If Doc debuts in May instead of June, the Mets are in. That was Frank Cashen's doing, not Davey's.
Finally, it was Frank Cashen who left Seaver unprotected on the 40 man roster, not Davey. At first they blamed it on a "clerical error" (pretty sure I remember that from An Amazin' Era) and then years later Cashen eventually admitted that he never thought a team would pay Seaver's contract. Sounds like Wilpons actually, but back then Doubleday was in charge.
Davey is not a borderline Hall-of-Fame manager, he should be inducted, just like Weaver (Davey's teacher) in 1996, and Herzog (Davey's nemesis) in 2010.
Last note, I think poster Jonathan Stern said it best in his post from 2004. Firstly, that Frank Cashen tore that magical team apart, and more presciently, he noted that once Davey shaved his mustache, he lost all his power, like the biblical Samson.
For that and other reasons, Davey became a shell of himself and lost control of the clubhouse, leading to his firing in 1990 and this debate we are having now.
An all-time great manager.
