Los Angeles Dodgers: Dave Roberts is underappreciated

Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts sometimes receives an unfair shake in the media. So much so that the 2016 Manager of the Year is underappreciated.

You can set your watch to it: if the Los Angeles Dodgers win a game the players are heaped with praise.

If the Dodgers lose a game close or blowout it isn’t that Chris Taylor has gone from National League Championship Series MVP to the strikeout king, it’s not that Cody Bellinger has a hole the size of Texas in his swing, nor is it the tire fire that is the bullpen.

No, whenever the Dodgers lose it’s the manager Dave Roberts fault. On any given day, Roberts is either a lame duck putting together a lineup he was told to by the front office or he’s in charge but still making all the mistakes.

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There is an old adage when it comes to baseball teams that struggle or don’t live up to expectations. When someone has to go it is said, “you can’t fire 25 guys.”

The amount of people on social media who think that Dave Roberts needs to be fired is astonishing to me. Ever since the Dodgers plucked him from the San Diego Padres staff, Roberts has done one thing: win.

Dave Roberts’ .583 win percentage is the highest of any Los Angeles Dodgers manager after they moved from Brooklyn. Other than Tommy Lasorda, Roberts is the only Dodgers manager to take the team to consecutive playoffs in his first two full years of managing having never managed before.

In fact, Roberts, in two playoffs, has won more series (four) than the previous seven managers combined (three).

Roberts has done all this while trying to repair a fractured clubhouse, integrating an army’s worth of players and personalities and overcoming a constant stream of injuries.

It’s his steady hand that weathered the hellish period last year where the team dropped 16 of 17 games. When everybody expected the Los Angeles Dodgers to lose against the Arizona Diamondbacks in the playoffs the team went out and swept them.

I defy anybody who can find me someone who can withstand to lose the best pitcher on the planet three seasons in a row to the disabled list and still be in first place by the time he came back.

Dave Roberts can’t bat for his players, can’t pitch for them, can’t run the bases for them. He can only put them in a position to try and succeed. The sooner the fan base can figure it out, the better the world will be.