So far, Dave Roberts has been a successful major league manager.
Since 2016, when he was named the manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Roberts has enjoyed an overall record of 453 wins and 287 losses in the regular season. The Dodgers have won the National League West every season he’s been at the helm, won the NL pennant three times, and won the 2020 World Series.
He had a 10-year playing career with five different major league teams, was known for being a speedy centerfielder with good range, and an exceptional base-stealer (see: 2004 ALCS). After he retired, he was a coach for the San Diego Padres from 2011-2015.
Conceivably, he’s been around the game his entire life, which makes this next part so hard to wrap my head around. For a player this smart and a manager this successful, why does he continually miss the easiest of in-game decisions?
This recent bad Dodgers stretch, where they’ve lost 12 of their last 16 games going into Wednesday, has exposed Roberts’ questionable in-game managerial moves once again. Yes, the team has had an unreasonable amount of injuries and yes, the healthy players are underperforming collectively at the plate, in the field, and on the mound (with the exception of the starting rotation), but that does not mean the manager gets to struggle. As many like to point out: Roberts can’t get up there and swing the bat for them – which is true, so his job should be easy to put players in the best positions to succeed.
Let’s take Tuesday’s double-header debacle vs. the Chicago Cubs, for example. Over his last seven games, Matt Beaty is 8-for-16 (.500), with a home run, 11 RBI, and three walks. That home run was a grand slam he hit against the Brewers on Sunday, a game in which he drove in seven runs. Not only did Beaty not get a start in either game on Tuesday, he never even sniffed the batter’s box. Instead, Edwin Ríos, who’s hitting .078 on the season, got Beaty’s at-bats and went 0-for-4.
After the game, Roberts was asked why Beaty didn’t appear in the double-header and his response was less-than-inspiring:
"So for me, Matt Beaty, to help our ballclub, coming off the bench, taking at-bats, getting starts here and there — that's his role on this club. He's got to continue to be ready to get the call." 3/3
— Bill Plunkett (@billplunkettocr) May 5, 2021
Nowhere in that answer did he say why one of the only hot Dodgers hitters didn’t get an at-bat when the team is struggling to score runs as it is. You either bench Gavin Lux and move Max Muncy to second and have Beaty play first in Game One, or you replace Justin Turner with Beaty at third in Game Two. The defense hasn’t been that good lately anyway, so what’s the difference?
If you didn’t want to start Beaty for defensive reasons, okay, but what about pinch hitting? In the fourth inning of Game One, Roberts sent up the struggling Ríos with two runners on and two outs to pinch hit. The Dodgers were already down 6-0 in a seven-inning game and could have used some offense to maybe get back into it. Ríos subsequently grounded out to end the inning and Beaty was nowhere to be found.
In Game Two with the Dodgers down 1-0, Beaty was announced as a pinch-hitter in the top of the sixth, but as soon as the Cubs countered by bringing in a lefty, Roberts countered by replacing Beaty with the right-handed hitting Sheldon Neuse. Neuse then struck out and Beaty was essentially used as an unnecessary decoy.
This, unfortunately, wasn’t the only bad move or non-move made by Roberts. Take your pick: bringing in Jimmy Nelson, one of the Dodgers’ better relievers, in a mop-up role with a 6-0 deficit in Game One so he couldn’t be used in Game Two; letting rookie Mitch White try to close it out in the bottom of the eighth with a two-run lead in Game Two instead of using veteran Scott Alexander; or how about using Austin Barnes to pinch-hit with two-runners on in the 9th inning of Game Two over Keibert Ruiz, who already homered in Game One?
This seems like I’m nitpicking, and maybe I am, but when your team is struggling to win ballgames, the manager needs to be on top of his game. Period. Maybe Roberts’ success as a manager has more to do with the stacked rosters he’s been handed than his ability to manage a ballgame. Maybe the 2020 team was the only team that was “Roberts-proof” that overcame his struggles to pull the right lever. Or maybe Roberts’ reputation as a player’s manager and a good clubhouse boss holds more weight with winning than the decisions he makes during games.
I happen to believe that if Roberts didn’t manage to perfection after being put in a 3-1 hole in the 2020 NLCS, the Dodgers would have been eliminated. The Dodgers need Roberts to be good to win another title, it’s that simple. What’s not so simple is: we know he has the ability to be a good in-game manager, why isn’t he more consistent? I’ll continue to be dumbfounded by that.
Managers shouldn’t be slumping, especially when their team is. That just can’t happen.
Jake Reiner is a writer & editor for Dodgers Tailgate. He’s also the host of the Meeting on the Mound with Jake Reiner podcast and co-host of The Incline: Dodgers podcast. You can follow him on Twitter here @Reiner_Jake.
Photo credit: Gene J. Puskar / Associated Press
