By Jordan Long
The L.A. Dodgers finished 100-62. It was the 4th time in 5 years they won 100 games or more in a season. The only year in recent memory they didn’t was the COVID-19 shortened year in 2020. Unfortunately, their season came to a close in the Division Series for the 2nd year in a row. Even though it was an early exit, the Dodgers will have Dave Roberts back as their manager in 2024.
Roberts has been the Dodgers manager since 2016. In that time the Dodgers have gone an impressive 753-442 under him, a winning percentage of .630. The Dodgers earned a playoff spot every year and even advanced to the World Series 3 times while winning it all in 2020.
The Dodgers were one of the top teams in all of baseball. They were the 2nd best team in the National League. With that, the Dodgers earned a bye in the Wild Card round. In the National League Division Series, the Dodgers were swept by the Arizona Diamondbacks, outscored in the short series 19 to 6.
In the playoffs, the Dodgers couldn’t do damage with the baseball with a .177 batting average as a team. The Diamondbacks kept the Dodgers hitters off-balance with 23 strikeouts. Pitching couldn’t get it done either as the Dodgers had a team ERA of 6.58.
When the final out of game 3 was recorded, questions swirled about if Roberts would be back as the Dodgers’ Manager. Well, he will be back. According to CBSsports.com, President of Baseball Operations of the Los Angeles Dodgers Andrew Friedman said, “The collective effort of this group and the culture — not just, ‘Hey, everyone gets along’ — going through the clubhouse and watching how everyone is focused, all of our players on how to try to win a game. The one thing I can say with absolute certainty — and there aren’t many things I can do that about — as we postmortem, it was certainly not from a lack of effort. Watching the way these guys prepared, cared, and did everything they could to put themselves in the best position to go out and have success.”
This is not a surprise. Roberts’ contract runs out after the 2025 season. Roberts knows how to manage this team to the playoffs. The results haven’t been there in the postseason in recent memory. Roberts is lucky to stay. Most teams would have fired a manager for playoff failures. The Dodgers kept him hoping to advance further in the playoffs. If the Dodgers have another early exit next year, Roberts’ seat may get hotter then it might be time to move on.
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