SAD AS IT SEEMS, DAVE ROBERTS MUST REACH THE WORLD SERIES TO KEEP HIS JOB
No one is better from March to September, such as this year, when pitching injuries were hideous and the Dodgers faced adversity with Ohtani, Betts and Freeman — but if Roberts keeps losing, he’s gone
You don’t have to squeeze his belly. A foot-long talking cord isn’t necessary for Dave Roberts to rhapsodize about the Dodgers, what they mean to the baseball culture, how they represent Los Angeles, how they symbolize humankind and why a World Series is anticipated like magic mushrooms, freeway congestion and mafia tapes.
“When you wear this uniform, there’s always pressure, expectations to win, to be a champion,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of great players, a lot of character players, top to bottom. This organization is fantastic. The product we put on the field, that we give to our fans every single night, that’s something I’m proud of.”
Trouble is, Roberts doesn’t control the tortured health of a pitching staff that once again could falter in the National League Division Series. Another defeat would mean three straight postseasons of collapse for the would-be champion. At this point, fans at Dodger Stadium don’t care about March, April, May, June, July, August and September. They actually could be bored, if we’re scanning average home ticket prices this week, where the Dodgers rank last among eight teams at $154 while the San Diego Padres — waiting to deliver the gong again in a best-of-five series beginning Saturday evening — are ringing in at $319.
Which is why Padres star Manny Machado said, “This is what everyone wanted to see.” It reflects what late owner Peter Seidler said two years ago about the Dodgers, when he roared, “They’re the dragon up the freeway that we’re trying to slay.”
Is Roberts ready for the creature? Is he feeling vulnerable?
Whatever he says about Jackie Robinson, the O’Malleys, Tommy Lasorda and the gorge known as Chavez Ravine, he won just one World Series in 2020 when the rest of the planet wasn’t watching. It’s almost a blip to claim the Dodgers have reached the playoffs 12 consecutive years and have won eight NL West titles in the manager’s nine years. So what if he has won 100 or more games in five seasons? Baseball remains the longest-running trailer tease in sports. Anyone can make the playoffs, as we see in Kansas City and Detroit with 86-76 clubs, and a year ago, when Arizona reached the Series after winning 84 games.
So what Roberts accomplishes in spring and summer doesn’t apply in autumn. As said by his immediate boss, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman: “We like high expectations. We relish them. It beats the s—t out of the alternative. People care, they’re passionate. They have high expectations. So do we. We think it’s a great thing.” The Dodgers are in the 11th year of a 25-year local TV contract with Spectrum that pays them $8.35 billion. They spend that money and then some thanks to a multi-billionaire named Mark Walter, who chose to pay $700 million to Shohei Ohtani and heaves megabucks at the roster and stadium as CEO of Guggenheim Partners. Walter made his wealth in Chicago. With no baseball team to buy there, sadly, he and his partners bought the Dodgers.
Never mind Roberts if was astonishing in using 40 pitchers to piece through endless surgeries and injuries. Never mind how he calmed the clubhouse when interpreter Ippei Mizuhara shelled Ohtani’s bank account for $17 million. Never mind when Mookie Betts fractured his left hand and Freddie Freeman dealt with his young son’s immune system illness. Tyler Glasnow, out for the year? Yoshinobu Yamamoto, paid $325 million to sit for months? Starting pitchers ranked 25th in innings pitched and 19th in ERA rankings. “We’re going to go into October with not as robust of a starting staff as we wanted to go into it with,” Friedman said.
How did Roberts reach the point where he won 98 games, the most in MLB? That won’t matter if he falls to the Padres or in the NLCS. The front office likely will make a change, with the manager’s deal up after next season. And if he continues to muddle games with maddening pitching moves — always a possibility if his bullpen is shot early, thanks to depletions — the fans will support a replacement. Who’s out there? Skip Schumaker, from Orange County, bolted Miami to find a much better job. Travis Barbary is manager of the team’s Class AAA affiliate in Oklahoma City. Chase Utley is an MLB ambassador in Europe. Former Dodgers pitcher Sergio Santos, successful in the minor leagues, is sought by the Chicago White Sox in a dead-end gig. The Mets took a flyer on Carlos Mendoza, 44 whose rollicking team is a bigger story in New York than the Yankees. Cleveland is in the Division Series with Stephen Vogt, who is 39. Kansas City is run by … Matt Quatraro. They are winning in October.
The people who watch on Spectrum are tired of the Roberts rigmarole. If he wins the Series again, superb. And if he loses to the Padres? He should look elsewhere, where some teams can’t wait to hire him, and the Dodgers should do the same. We know where he stands with Walter when he was forced to sit in a section of media folks during Ohtani’s introduction in Los Angeles. Why wasn’t he on stage with Walter, Friedman, Ohtani and agent Nez Balelo? Ohtani explained it, harshly. If the owner and baseball ops president left the franchise, he also could opt out of his deal.
Say hi to Joe Davis, Dave.
“Everybody has to be on the same page in order to have a winning organization,” Ohtani said. “I feel like those two are at the top of it and they’re in control of everything, and I feel almost like I’m having a contract with those two guys.”
Talks about a managerial extension haven’t happened. They won’t unless the Dodgers hang another banner. “We are focused on winning 11 games in October,” Friedman said. “We’ve gone through this multiple times and have been successful.”
Not really, says the owner. “It was something that we’d told (Ohtani). Despite the fact that we’re the winningest team in baseball for the last 10 years — we’ve been to three World Series and five NLCS — I told him I really thought we were still a failure and we really had to step it up,” Walter said. “I do feel that way, that we have yet to really establish what we should.”
It’s wholly unfair. Craig Counsell was paid $40 million to manage the Chicago Cubs, who flopped this year, and he never has reached the Series. Dave Roberts has won a Series and lost a Series twice. Still, who can blame an owner who has spent $320.9 million this season and is under contract with Ohtani until 2033? The manager will return to the clubhouse, his face awash in joy, and tell his players: “No one said this was going to be easy! You’ve been through hell and back and I want to thank you guys for all sticking together, believing in one another and I promise you this! No team we face is going to have more fight than us!”
They will have fight. They won’t have innings on the mound. He is 1-6 in his last seven playoff appearances. One more setback means he’s without a job.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.