Opening Day for Major League Baseball (MLB) is just under a month away, beginning with the Dodgers vs. Padres in Seoul, South Korea. The historic games to be hosted in South Korea will surely be a big storyline as the MLB moves to grow the game internationally. However, for the Dodgers, it will be the first step in their campaign for a World Series title. As the front office in Los Angeles (LA) made Winter headlines by spending over a billion dollars on players like Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow, among others, the expectations to win in LA are obvious. Considering the stakes, Dodger Manager Dave Roberts will be on the hot seat the entire season, but the beloved manager will not be asked to leave if the Dodgers lose in the playoffs.
While the additions to this year’s Dodgers’ roster might foment a certain impatience among Dodger fans and the front office alike, it’s Dave Roberts’ ability to lead a locker room and preserve a winning culture that makes him a player favorite. One of the biggest selling points that Dave Roberts, Andrew Friedman, President of Baseball Operations, Mark Walter, CEO of Guggenheim Partners and Stan Kasten, President and Co-Owner of the Dodgers, have made in their discussions with the league’s top players was simple: we want to win. An easy pitch to make to players like Ohtani who have been on underwhelming teams such as the Angels, but especially because of the team morale and winning culture that has been established by the team’s staff led by Dave Roberts.
It seems as though even before this offseason, the Dodgers were consistently expected to win it all even with their evident weaknesses such as a depleted pitching staff. Considering the lack of usual big spending or blockbuster trades from the front office last season, the expectations for the Dodgers seemed a bit lower, as Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN) baseball analysts such as Buster Olney and Jeff Passan agreed before the start of last season, that the Dodgers should only be expected to amass a 90-win campaign. Yet, Dave Roberts, along with stellar seasons from Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman, shattered those expectations by producing a 100-win NL West-clinching season.
Calls for Dave Roberts’ firing from the Dodgers may have stemmed from the lack of memorable postseason performances after being among the best teams in baseball during the regular season, year-after-year. But, at least for the playoffs in 2023, Dave Roberts put his team in the best position to win by remaining with his successful lineup recipe of Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman as the 1-2 combo up at the top and starting a decent Clayton Kershaw as the Game 1 starter against the D-backs. Out of Roberts’ control though, was a disastrous Kershaw performance against the D-backs in Game 1 and a combined 1-21 batting performance from Betts and Freeman. Roberts put his trust in his best players and they did not perform, contrasting to what they had done all year. As such, it would be misguided to think Roberts was the cause of Dodgers’ postseason implosions.
Even Andrew Friedman has touted Dave Roberts ability to meet the modern-day demands of a MLB manager saying, “his ability to cultivate a great clubhouse culture, maintaining high energy and keeping the clubhouse loose, all while staying locked in on game strategy is truly impressive,” in a quote reported by FanNation, an affiliate of SportsIllustrated. With his players’ respect and amicability, evident in their endearing nickname for Dave Roberts or “Doc,” Roberts is clearly a leader who has the mandate of his diverse clubhouse that includes more than a few larger-than-life players.
The argument that “Dave Roberts will be fired should the Dodgers not win the World Series…” makes no effort to point out what might be the actual cause of Roberts’ firing other than a failure to achieve the top prize. It does not consider actual causes like a possible rift between players and the team, ill-advised baseball decision-making, or organizational distrust of Roberts’ ability to lead a superteam at-large. The fact that the Dodger front office has stuck with Roberts at the helm and have invested so much money in correcting and enhancing the Dodger roster is a testament to the organization’s trust that they have in him.
Just because impatient Dodger fans, hungry for a World Series, are calling for the ousting of Roberts, they make these calls ignorant to the fact that Roberts’ has an overwhelming mandate from within the Dodger organization to continue to lead. It might be easy to blame the manager after a failure to meet expectations but it’s always more complex than just the manager and yet he bears the brunt for the team’s collective failure. Roberts has a robust relationship with his players, an unyielding trust from his front office and the players needed to dominate. Now it is up to these three entities to work together in winning a World Series for LA.
