The Los Angeles Dodgers’ season ended on a very sour note, with a sweep in the NLDS by the Arizona Diamondbacks.
But Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said Tuesday that sweep was a team effort, and no fault of manager Dave Roberts.
Friedman confirmed the veteran manager and the Dodgers coaching staff will return in 2024. He praised Roberts’ work this year.
“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,” Friedman said (via SB Nation’s Eric Stephens. “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.
“Now, we didn’t do it, and that ultimately is what matters most, so it’s figuring out from that. But I think Doc, our coaching staff did a good job this year, and none of us did a good job for any of those three games against Arizona.”
No one expected Roberts’ job to be in jeopardy despite the playoff stumble. In eight seasons, he has a 753-442 record with one World Series championship and three NL pennants.
Dodgers faithful and baseball fans in general had mixed thoughts on the decision.
Dave Roberts appreciation post:
753-442 in his career
8-8 playoff appearances
1x World Series Champion
All players and coaches love himHe should be allowed to manage the Dodgers for as long as he wants to. He’s already up there with Lasorda and Alston as GOAT Dodgers manager. pic.twitter.com/QaDsArO0oy
— sky (@GonsolinRBW) October 18, 2023
Good. I hope Dave is our manager for a long long time
— Anthony (@Sinbronis) October 17, 2023
My favorite yearly offseason tweet. I hope the Dave Roberts haters are seething. https://t.co/ait69jcZeO
— Randi (@randi9320) October 17, 2023
Appreciate the brief acknowledgement that top down the organization as a whole didn’t really put the pieces in the right spots at the end.
— RovingRaccoon (@RovingRaccoon) October 17, 2023
It’s time for change, a new philosophy from a managerial standpoint Dave ROBERTS I do not trust anymore
— JSmooth_Rivera (@JulioRafaelRiv6) October 17, 2023
They better spend a ton more money to have so much depth at pitcher and go get some proven bats for the playoffs because Roberts will overthink playoff games and lose them for us. We need to be able to blow teams out for that not to happen.
— Philip Manning (@PhilipManning28) October 17, 2023
