After losing to the Nationals in Game Five of the NLDS last night, the Dodgers will be missing the World Series for the first time since 2016. The heartbreaking nature of Wednesday’s defeat has already led to some speculation among fans and pundits that a change could (or should) be coming to the Dodgers’ dugout, though none seems to be on the way. Jorge Castillo of the Los Angeles Times reports that Dave Roberts will indeed return as the team’s manager in 2020, “according to two people with knowledge of the situation.”
Roberts has an outstanding 393-256 record over four seasons as the Dodgers’ skipper, a resume that includes two National League pennants, four consecutive NL West titles, and a 106-56 regular season mark in 2019 that ranks as the winningest season in the Dodgers’ 136-year history. Despite all of this success, however, a World Series championship has remained elusive. L.A. dropped the 2017 Series to the Astros in seven games and then absorbed a five-game loss to the Red Sox in 2018, before making an unexpectedly early exit in this year’s postseason.
There were also whispers about Roberts’ future employment after last year’s Series loss, though the Dodgers exercised their option on his services for 2019 and ultimately signed him to a three-year extension that runs through the 2022 season. While Dodgers ownership certainly has the resources to eat the money owed on three years of a manager’s contract if a change was deemed necessary, that recent long-term commitment made it seem pretty unlikely that Roberts would be fired, despite the controversy over the last 24 hours.
Of course, nothing short of a World Series will ultimately satisfy Los Angeles fans, especially since the most common complaint directed at Roberts (his late-game bullpen management) perhaps reached its apex in Game Five against Washington. Dodgers supporters will forever bemoan the decisions to bring Clayton Kershaw out of the bullpen, and then to leave Joe Kelly on the mound for a second inning of work — just as they’ll always wonder why Roberts removed a dominant Rich Hill after 6 1/3 frames during Game Four of the 2018 Series. Roberts’ heavy focus on platoon switches and lefty-righty matchups have also received criticism, though this would seem like a more specific organizational focus rather than something Roberts is personally responsible for (and, this same flexible roster depth is a major reason the Dodgers have won so many games in the first place).
There are already eight teams looking to hire new managers this offseason, and while there is some debate over which of those jobs is the most attractive, one would imagine the Dodgers’ opening would have immediately zoomed to the top of the list if Roberts had indeed been replaced. The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal, as part of a subscription-only piece wondering about Roberts’ future with the Dodgers, also made the point that Roberts would surely be a sought-after candidate for one of those eight other open jobs, given his track record and ties to other executives on those manager-needy franchises.
Cool, another season of regular season success but just the matter of time before he makes a terrible decision or decisions to cost them in the playoffs. Unbelievable. Wish we had the ball the Warriors had to fire this guy like the Warriors did with Mark Jackson. Bring in a coach that will light a fire under them. I miss the old school days of Lasorda lol.
To be fair, I still believe most of those decisions are made for him.
Agreed
Sad state of baseball that a manager is not allowed to manage. From a neutral fan’s perspective, it was great watching the Steinbrenner-Martin drama unfold. Ultimately, fans are pawns of the owners’ pleasures and today their focus continues to make the game harder and harder to watch. I still find myself checking and then reviewing highlights but I just can’t watch or listen any more. Too long, too many breaks and of course too much “fake baseball” be it the ball, the small stadiums or even the freedom players have to individually express themselves. In my view, professionalism was part of the beauty of the game.
He said in the postgame presser that he went off script, went with his gut. Fans want a manager who bucks the analytics and goes with his gut, but only if it works.
Could also be him being a yes man. He couldn’t throw his bosses under the bus if he still wants to manage the team.
So the numbers people wanted him to go against the numbers? Yeah, that makes sense.
Or maybe the analytics said to go with Kershaw, and go another inning with Kelly, and Roberts is covering for them and taking the fall. It’s all speculation unless you’re in their meeting rooms.
This is comical. When Doc said he went off script with those decisions to stay with Kershaw and Kelly, he’s saying he abandoned data, logic and analytics and went with his gut. Those decisions were not “dictated from above” they were his. He’s a stand up guy and owned those horrible decisions. Give him credit and blame; but, please don’t use his professional tact as an excuse to bash the FO. The FO appears set to stay with him—despite the imperfections. Hopefully, he will learn from this unfortunate experience.
His awful moves definitely cost them the season. But it was still hard to see them giving him the boot despite all that went wrong yesterday.
He has made a lot of bad postseason decisions over the years. This inexplicable one is but one of many!
The feeling I’ve always had with Roberts is that he keeps a modern front office happy through his cooperation but when the analytics are not readily available he demonstrates little feel for a baseball game.
Are you sure all moves are his decisions?
Roberts escapes being Grady Little’d.
Grady Little got fired.. not because he left Pedro in but because he said he’d do it again.
Wait…? There can’t possibly more ways to piss away a World Series but I guess we’ll have to wait now and see.
As well he should.
I would take Robert’s as our manager and Ausmus as our bench coach in San Diego.
Trade you Wil Myers for Roberts?
You can take Joe Kelly as a toss in
If the Dodgers pay most of the cost, Kelly will still have many takers. He put it together the second half of last year.
The one bit of fun I was looking forward to, the ONLY bit of fun left in, this season was to watch the Dodgers lose in the playoffs because of their bullpen.
But, even though it was technically a bad decision at the time based on the available information…
Can’t fault them for not trading for PedoFelipe Vazquez. They got lucky and dodged that bullet. Piece of garbage.
They didn’t lose because of the bullpen. They lost because of the manager deciding to use Kershaw as a setup man and die on the hill with Joe Kelly
Losing because you have to pitch a starter as a reliever and because of a bad reliever…that’s losing because of the bullpen.
Then again, I just watched Osuna close out the Rays setting up a matchup in the ALCS with Chapman and the Yankees…
Maybe having human filth as your closer is the key to playoff success in MLB? Maybe the Dodgers should trade for Vazquez and have all the Roman Polanski fans support him?
They didn’t have to do that. There was a clear path to victory that didn’t involve Kershaw. Maeda has been one of the best relief pitchers in the whole postseason. Kolarek was 3 for 3 getting Soto. Jansen, Urias and May as well were good options. Roberts just flat out screwed up.
There is more to this than his poor game 5 pitching decisions. The lineup he kept putting g out there with the three black holes of Pollock, Seager and ballinger
Yes, he just couldn’t not go with those terrible players.
Well he didn’t pitch Jansen until those last 2 outs, which is an insult to the man. I’d demand a trade if I was him, but being on a winning team in LA is a lot to give up.
The Dodgers has the #1 bullpen ERA in the NL. Maeda and Kolarek were the correct answer in the 8th, Jansen in the 9th, and 90% of Dodger fans knew it at the time. The nationals had to use starters in the pen because their pen was the worst in baseball. Dave did the same despite having a very good bullpen. It made no sense.
If you go back over the season there was a lot of just dumb moves by Roberts. He was the reason the Dodgers had to win so many game in last at bats. Dumb pitching choices like Hill starting and only going 3 innings and Pitching Kelly who was hurting probably should not been on post season roster.
The Kershaw decision I’m fine with. He made Eaton look silly to end the seventh.
What i don’t get is not bringing Jansen in after the lead off double in the top of the tenth.
Funny how Roberts was excoriated last season for taking Hill out, but gets excoriated again the season for leaving guys in. In retrospect, he should have taken out Kershaw after the 1st HR, and not gone with Kelly as long as he did, but 20/20 hindsight is perfect.
It’s not 20/20 hindsight, it’s common sense. Rendon is 357/438/500 against Kershaw, how could anyone have not known a homerun was coming? I sure as hell knew it was coming. Kolarek is a loogy and could/should have finished off the inning, Maeda should have followed him. Like drm166 said 90% of Dodger fans knew the correct pitchers to put in.
Man don’t say that, he’s still young. He could be the next Kimbrel, or Mariano. I’d give him two years before saying he’s trash.
Be careful mentioning Vazquez. They delete every comment that mentions him even if it’s completely innocuous.
You must be a very proud young man.
Wow. Very surprising. All that talent and no WS wins. Then he gets to keep his job. Good for him I guess.
Truly shocked he was not swiftly fired. Last night felt like the end.
It would’ve been so much fun to watch Brad Ausmus get handed the keys to yet another high-powered sports car, only to realize he can’t drive a stick shift.
He won 72 with the Anaheim angles of Los Angeles, that’s better than 70; the puds will be happy to have him.
After this many disappointments you have to move on, but if you want to continue losing go ahead and keep him! What a wonderful success equation from Dodgers ownership!
Now the question is will the Dodgers continue to sit on their top prospects or finally look to upgrade their awful bullpen
The bullpen isn’t awful, they had the 9th best reliever ERA in baseball. Management of the bullpen, however…
*5th best ERA in baseball
Dodgers need to upgrade the starting pitchers with Cole or another top pitcher. Buehler needs help even if they resign Ryu.
True, 89mph fastballs don’t seem to work as good in the postseason…
Roberts is a minority. They are not firing him…..
Tell that to Dusty Baker.
That’s a bs comment. Roberts has done a great job and he’s the respect of the front office and the clubhouse. What people fail to realize is almost all of these moves are mapped out ahead of time based on matchups by the front office and the coaching staff. Roberts didn’t just sit there look at his roster sheet and settle on Kershaw than cross his fingers. This was all planned and if Kershaw gets the job done nobody is second guessing the decision.
Nah, Kershaw going in wasn’t planned by anyone but Roberts, and he owned it postgame.
Looking at it with a little more objectivity than I had yesterday, while Roberts’ poor decision making is certainly responsible for the Dodgers losing game 5, I don’t think the series loss can be laid at his feet. Three of his most important players disappeared. Corey Seager’s poor performance can maybe be forgiven since he hits down in the lineup, but an 0-13 from AJ Pollock and 0 RBI from Cody Bellinger are indefensible.
If they aren’t going to move on from Roberts, you have to wonder if there won’t instead by some major player changes. Or maybe they just chalk this one up to bad luck and try one more time with essentially the same roster.
They should trade guys like Stripling, Pederson, Kershaw, Jansen, Baez, and maybe even turner. Big moves are coming.
Part of me wonders if they might consider trading Bellinger. He’s still young, but he’s also done nothing in three trips to the postseason. It might be time to cash in on him while he’s coming off a career year.
Part of me wonders if part of you isn’t really really dumb.
Sounds like a sound baseball move.
Big moves are one thing. Big bad moves are another.
They’d get barely anything for Jansen, Kershaw, and Baez. Trading them isn’t the answer – properly assessing their current capability, and giving them a role that fits, that’s the answer. Kershaw isn’t an ace, and he isn’t a big time reliever. He’s a decent starter. Jansen is a decent reliever. There’s room for both, as long as their responsibilities aren’t outsized.
It’s definitely not just Roberts. The team struck out something like 1 for every 3 at-bats. And why isn’t Kershaw getting more heat? Whatever the situation, whether he was used correctly or not, Kershaw blew that game. He threw the pitches. He should be getting dumped on as much as Roberts.
Disagree, he never should have been in there to begin with. He isn’t who he was, he’s a junkballer with a 90 mph fastball. Yes, he threw the pitches, but only because someone else put him on the bump. He was not set up for success.
No you were correct the first time. Strasburg, Scherzer, and Corbin can and usually do make hitters look inept. While Pollock and Seager were awful and Bellinger was borderline, Roberts’ game management with the bullpen was the reason the Dodgers lost. He had a 2-run lead and a rested pen with 6 outs to go. There was any number of ways he could have gone and he chose the worse. Then he stuck with his bad decisions way way too long.
Honorable mention also goes to Friedman for carrying Hill on the roster instead of Gonsolin. Hill’s a gamer but he wasn’t healthy or built up and doomed the team to a bullpen game in his start. Roberts and Friedman knew that but went with him anyway. I’d have much rather seen Tony Smokes with Big Red backing him in that game.
Can you trade him to the Pirates for say, Joe Musgrove?
Lol
There is more to this than his poor game 5 pitching decisions. The lineup he kept putting out there with the three black holes of Pollock, Seager and bellinger
He doesn’t get to pick the lineup silly.
Such a great insight, it was worth stating twice.
If you want to bench the NL MVP for a couple bad games….. you go right ahead. I’ll probably die on the hill with him.
Benching Seags and Belli isn’t an option
The Kershaw decision I’m fine with. He made Eaton look silly to end the seventh.
What i don’t get is not bringing Jansen in after the lead off double in the top of the tenth.
After K’s celebration to end the seventh, should have ended his night there. Then I’d pitch Maeda 2 innings, Kelly 1, then Jansen if it came to that. But it’s easy for me to look back, and Roberts had to do what his boss told him to.
Bad decision. He messes up with the bullpen way too much. He choked. Time to fire him ASAP.
Great news for all 31 other teams.
31? Did MLB expand last night. Was there a expansion draft on the MLB Network ? Did the Angels leave Ohtani and Trout unprotected and they’re both headed to Montreal???
He also screwed the Dodgers out of a championship in 2017. If he doesn’t remove Hill in G2 after 4 innings/67 pitches, it doesn’t set in motion the chain reaction of events that occurred which caused LA to go back to Houston tied 1-1 rather than up 2-0 and ultimately win the series. The guy just can’t get out of his own way. But then, he is only a puppet for Friedman and the rest of the FO Geek Squad.
If he’s a puppet, why did he go with his gut and send Kershaw out there? That was not the move to make by the numbers.
Dodgers picked up Pollock and Kelly thinking of they could help them to a higher level, No..I would say a total big bust and wasted of money,. Kelly carry an ERA of over 4.50 during the season, ERA of over 23..00 in post season, he served up a grand slam to give the boys in blue an early exit.. Pollock AB 13 times , K 11. times in post season, missed time during the season again due to injury like he always does. Neither one earned their lunch money. Dodgers starting rotation are aging, BP needs help, a new manager is a must, As a long time Dodgers fan, I feel depress…go Lakers!
Puppet.
He has made poor moves or failed to make the right moves and done nothing but let’s not forget the front office all but ignoring our biggest problem, the bullpen…we had some options out there and the money to spend to make sure we didn’t blow it again and we failed to do it…let’s get our bullpen full of lights out arms
By failed to make the right moves I meant not making a move at all
Yes, not spending enough money was the Dodgers issue.
Maybe Dave Roberts has a gambling problem because he can’t manage a baseball team.
How come no one is pointing out the terrible decision to go with Rich Hill to start? He looked bad leading up to post season, and the thought of having a starter maybe give u 4 innings in a playoff series sounds like a bad choice for a starter. While all season Maeda was solid and should have been a Game 4 starter instead of a reliever. Yet another boneheaded decision to me.
He’s just a dumb a**.
Why not start Buehler in-game 4 and there would have been no game 5. That would have been normal rest for Buehler also.
I can’t fault Roberts for bringing in Kershaw when he did. Especially when two of the three batters he’s scheduled to face are LH (Eaton, Rendon and Soto). However, all that analytics nonsense that so permeates the Dodgers front office should have told him Kelly was the least of his available bullpen arms to entrust the game/series to.
Jansen didn’t get into the game until our fate was sealed and the K-Man didn’t even get in the game.
Yep, poor decisions by Roberts following’s Kershaw’s meltdown. True, momentum was on the Nats side after Soto’s bomb, but Maeda doused that in a hurry.
Dunno. maybe you let Maeda pitch another inning before you turn it over to K-Man and/or Jansen? Whatever, LA fans are gonna have all winter to mull over this latest playoff series loss.
The Astros are the most analytically-inclined club in baseball, they don’t even have pro scouts. Go on, tell us how terrible they are, how bogus their ring is.
if Roberts was white he would have been fired. he knows they can’t touch him now in LA because of the color of his skin
Dusty Baker disagrees.
106 wins and you want him fired. Take the next step: who you gonna get that is better? The players love DR. Everybody does…
Great that he’s loved by the players, but he’s a terrible tactician.
DR need to get quality pen guys, Pitchers who can perform in high leverage situations. LA’s collapse, disappointment whatever lies squarely with Friedman who has failed to adequately address the pen appropriately for the past few years.
Nope. Maeda to Jansen was a clear path to victory. But Dave didn’t go there
The Dodgers should fire Roberts…
Roberts is a good guy and a good manager.
However, time and time again, Roberts makes the wrong decisions in crucial games in crucial series…
Putting Kershaw in the game when the Dodgers had a talented, rested bullpen was a boneheaded managerial decision that cost the Dodgers a third trip to the NLCS.
Do the Dodgers want to be known as the Buffalo Bills of baseball….always coming off short?!
Roberts is becoming the Marty Schottenheimer of MLB.
He can always get his team to the playoffs.
But, like Schottenheimer, Roberts cannot win the big game or big series
like the World Series?!
When will Dodgers Front Office and Ownership take action on behalf of the fans, players etc?!
I know this is no big deal but the artical said “absorbed a five-game loss to the Red Sox in 2018”. Didn’t he mean to say a game five loss? Sound like they lost 5 times.
No it sounded like they lost the series in 5 games which they did
No!!!!!
They need to put a clause into Robert’s contract that they can opt to bring in a different manager once the postseason starts.
Can we put that same clause in kershaw a contract?
So he’ll do a little worse next year and a little worse the next year and so on and so on..