Johnson excels at what could be thankless job
on the harvest.
Johnson is highly regarded for his ability to think along with Orioles manager Buck Showalter as emergency needs arise on the big league club. He’s the guy at the other end of the “Norfolk Shuttle” that has fed the Orioles throughout a five-year period during which they have won more regular-season games than any other American League team.
“This is an extension of our major league club,” Johnson said. “I think Buck would agree with that. You go through 162 games, you’re not going to play the same guys and keep the same roster throughout the year. Your depth is the guys that are down here that can come up and fill when you have certain guys go down.”
But that’s why it’s one of the most important jobs, not why it’s the best. Johnson loves his job because he also is — generally — the final gatekeeper for the talent that rises through all the levels of the minor league system; the guy who sends the Orioles’ best young players off to the big city.
“There’s nothing more exciting than telling a guy he’s going to the big leagues,” Johnson said Friday. “That’s why I have the best job of anybody in the organization. It happens in Double-A a little bit, too. But I get to do it with a message and usually it’s a message that comes from all the guys that work with players throughout the system as they come through and I get to deliver that message.”
He also gets to be the bearer of good news to the assortment of journeyman players who pass through Norfolk to prepare for that moment when the Orioles need an experienced bat or glove. Those moments are more frequent in the Orioles organization because of the importance that Showalter and baseball operations chief Dan Duquette put on keeping veteran depth in reserve.
“They do a great job here of understanding the way it works,” Showalter said during the Orioles’ visit to Harbor Park on Friday. “It’s something that Frederick and Delmarva and Bowie don’t have to go through much, but it’s not like any other level. You don’t have it in pro football. You don’t have it in pro basketball. You don’t have it in golf and anything else, the dynamic between Triple-A and the major leagues. It’s very important that everybody’s pulling on the same rope. If not, it’s a long year.”
Showalter joked about the conversations he has had with Johnson during the wee hours of the morning.
“If I had a nickel for every time at 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning I’ve talked to RJ and we’re trying to see if we can get somebody there [to Baltimore], but we also know it affects this team and we try to be very aware of it. But I think everybody understands where the priority is.”
It’s about winning as many games as the Orioles can in a division that requires every ounce of output from a middle-market team. Last year, the Orioles barely slipped into the playoffs, so the importance of salvaging even one more win during a personnel crisis is difficult to overstate.
“We’re in a tough division,” Duquette said. “We’ve got to slug it out every night. We’ve got to do whatever we can to be resourceful within our market and having our team be as strong as we can every night, night in and night out. We work really hard on that.”
Said Johnson: “It’s a very valuable thing. You know, Buck talks about it all the time. When we’re at spring training and at those meetings, he talks more about the depth of the players than the starting nine and the people that he has, because he knows that he’s going to have to reach down and get them. If we’re here and they’re performing the way they should, then they’re available.”
This year’s Norfolk roster is filled with players who figure to show up at Camden Yards over the course of the season. The starting lineup for Friday’s exhibition game against the Orioles included seven position players who have significant major league experience. Ron’s son, Chris Johnson, was one of them.
Chris was signed by the Orioles to augment their corner infield depth, but it was a two-for-one deal for Ron, a new grandfather who did not get to spend a lot of time watching his own kid battle his way to the big leagues with the Houston Astros.
Johnson shares credit with pitching coach Mike Griffin for handling a complex situation that requires that “you always have a Plan B,” and never complains about a job that others might view as thankless.
“It’s easy because we have done this long enough and I know what the big picture here is and my job is to have this team prepared to service our major league team,” Johnson said. “If we’re fortunate enough to win games in here and do stuff, that’s great, and I think we will. But we never lose sight of what we’re really here to do.”
And clearly, Showalter has never lost sight of how important that job is.
“I think he’s the best Triple-A manager in baseball in terms of understanding the job and understanding what the priorities are,” Showalter said, “and I think it’s probably one of the hardest jobs in baseball and sports maybe, to be able to keep a good frame of mind. I think he creates a great culture down here — he and Griff. They don’t have an ego. They just want to do what’s right and they treat people the way you would like to have your son treated.”