Los Angeles Dodgers: Players that must be better to win the World Series

3.Dave Roberts

Okay, this one is kind of cheating the system as the title of the article says three players that must be better and Dave Roberts obviously is not a player. However, “players” sounded better than “people” so we are just going to roll with that.

Roberts has a lot of naysayers throughout the Dodgers community that were all upset when the team opted to sign him to an extension. Usually, I fall on the other side of the fence, defending Roberts and the fact that he is a great clubhouse manager and has taken the Dodgers to three straight League Championships and two straight World Series.

If you fired every manager that did not win a World Series in their first three years then nearly every team would be without a manager.

However, I am also not blinded by Roberts’ success to not point out when he makes an awful decision. The decision to pull Rich Hill in Game 4 of the World Series still haunts me and was even a move that I saw backfiring in the moment.

That was terrible. For the most part, Roberts does make good decisions and expecting him to be perfect is only going to lead to disappointment. No manager is perfect.

However, he needs to make smarter decisions in the postseason. In fact, he needs to be the one making the decisions. The Dodgers have a great analytics department that unfortunately is in Dave Roberts’ ear.

While the team has not confirmed this, everyone knows that the front office plays a role in the decision making in the postseason. Why have a manager if you are not going to let him manage with his gut?

Dave Roberts is at his best in the regular season when the front office is more “laissez-faire”.  That needs to be the Los Angeles Dodgers’, and Dave Roberts’, approach throughout the postseason as well.