With the Dodgers' second World Series title for Dave Roberts, “vindication” and a road to Cooperstown

NEW YORK – After the final game in October, Dave Roberts weaved through crowds and stepped over gold streamers scattered across the outside turf of Yankee Stadium. His two children and his wife were at his side. He had to go to the clubhouse to celebrate defeating the New York Yankees in the World Series, but members of the Los Angeles Dodgers universe kept stopping him. He hugged Magic Johnson, Billie Jean King and Ellen Kershaw.

Along the third base line, a loud group of Dodgers fans saluted the players as they left the field. Eventually, despite the hugs and pats on the back, Roberts managed to approach the dugout. During his nine-year tenure as manager, there were times when he heard taunts and read calls for his sacking. All he felt in the early hours of Thursday morning after a thrilling 7-6 win in Game 5 was loud celebration. He took off his cap and absorbed the adulation as a two-time World Series champion manager.

“This is a big endorsement for Dave,” said veteran pitcher Clayton Kershaw. “Doc did a great job. He’s done a great job this postseason.”

The 2024 World Series was Roberts' finest hour as a manager. The stakes for this season were set when the team signed Shohei Ohtani last winter: Anything less than a championship would be considered a failure. Roberts led a group that lived up to those expectations despite a fair amount of misfortune. He overcame structural problems with the squad. His pitching staff lacked depth. The team ran bullpen games in all three postseason series. At times Roberts strategically missed chances to win.

But in the end, after defeating the San Diego Padres, New York Mets and Yankees, the Dodgers found themselves alone at the top of the big leagues. Roberts can pose for his bust. He started this month knowing that his job maybe not sure. He will leave on the right path to the Hall of Fame.

Dave Roberts, celebrating with Mookie Betts, bounced back from recent playoff frustration. “I’ve evolved,” he said. (Sarah Stier/Getty Images)

His .618 winning percentage is the best of any non-Negro League manager. He never won fewer than 91 games in a full season; The Dodgers have achieved more than 100 wins in five of those eight years. He has now won the World Series more times than Bobby Cox (class of 2014), Whitey Herzog (class of 2010) and Jim Leyland (class of 2024). He has won the pennant four times, as many times as Earl Weaver (class of 1996), Dick Williams (class of 2008) and Tom Lasorda (class of 1997).

Roberts called it “humbling” to be mentioned in the same category as Lasorda and his former Dodgers captain Walter Alston, a four-time champion. “I never thought I would be part of the same conversation,” Roberts said. “I'm part of a great organization, a lot of great people around me support me and we've won a lot of ball games. This is something I really wanted. I wanted this one.”

His colleagues were more effusive.

“Dave is a Hall of Famer,” Dodgers bullpen coach Josh Bard said. “It's a fact. He won it in very different ways. He should have three.”

The memory of the 2017 World Series against the Houston Astros is still felt throughout the organization. The series marked Roberts' first affair with sustained public disapproval. He was attacked for his bullpen decisions, unaware that Houston had employed an illegal sign-stealing scheme. A year later, when the Dodgers lost the World Series to the Boston Red Sox, then-President Donald Trump took offense to one of Roberts' maneuvers. In 2019, when the Dodgers suffered a surprisingly early exit, Roberts won hellish criticism.

Roberts achieved some satisfaction in 2020 as the Dodgers won the title. The championship still came with a few requirements. Because of the pandemic, the regular season only lasted 60 games. The World Series took place in Arlington, Texas. There was no parade. And while Roberts achieved some of his best strategic success this postseason, the results didn't shield him from future wrath.

Over the next three seasons, the Dodgers failed to find postseason success to match their regular-season dominance. Roberts came under scrutiny for his bullpen management in 2021, when using starter Julio Urías as a backup backfired, and in 2022, when the final loss to the San Diego Padres was accompanied by a relief corps meltdown. In 2023, after the 84-win Arizona Diamondbacks defeated the 100-win Dodgers, Roberts vowed to avoid a repeat. “I have to find a better way to prepare our guys for the postseason,” Roberts said. “This is mine.”

After spending $1.4 billion this offseason, the Dodgers entered 2024 as prohibitive betting favorites to win. The road to the crown was full of potholes. There was the gambling scandal involving Ohtani's former interpreter Ippei Mizuhara. There was a rush of injuries. The Diamondbacks and Padres gave up a bid for the National League West near the end of the season.

Andrew Friedman, the president of baseball operations who hired Roberts after the 2015 season, praised Roberts for buoying the group during troubled times. “His relentless optimism is one of his signature strengths,” Friedman said. “And obviously we've been through a lot this year. A lot of adversity. His ability to inject optimism into the group during some of our more difficult times and remind them to look around and see how talented the guys around us are was very meaningful.”

With only three starting pitchers left, Dave Roberts had to skillfully manage his bullpen. (Elsa/Getty Images)

Kiké Hernández played for Roberts for five years before leaving in free agency. Upon returning to the Dodgers in 2023, Hernández noted that Roberts had improved as a communicator. “Dave is such a nice guy,” Hernández said. “He is such a positive, energetic personality. I think in the first few years it was difficult for him to have difficult conversations. As a leader and good communicator, you have to be willing to be 1,000 percent honest and have difficult conversations. I feel like that was the biggest difference.”

As the postseason approached, Dodgers officials discussed how to prepare for October. The players, coaches and executives were all frustrated by the team's inability to perform after the short break that came with winning the division. The Dodgers finished the season with 98 wins, the best record in baseball. Roberts and the front office trusted players like Hernández and Max Muncy to organize team-building activities during the Wild Card round so that players could stay together during the break.

The unit was unable to solve an obvious problem with the squad. There weren't enough starting pitchers. The injured arm list included Kershaw and key offseason addition Tyler Glasnow, as well as young players like Gavin Stone, Emmet Sheehan and River Ryan. The Dodgers began October with a three-man rotation. In a seven-game series, that meant he had to make some tough decisions. There would be some games where he couldn't go for wins.

In his first few years at the helm, Roberts excelled at identifying high-impact situations. This was still a time when many managers assigned roles based on innings rather than matchups. Roberts used front office data to suppress an opposing team's best hitters with his best replacements. However, in a longer series, repeated use of even the strongest arms had consequences.

During Game 3 of the 2017 World Series, Roberts used Kenta Maeda for eight outs despite a sizable deficit. The manager believed his offense deserved a chance to get back into the game. But when Maeda returned to action two days later, he delivered a game-winning home run to Jose Altuve. In 2019, Pedro Báez was unavailable for the final game of the season, having featured in the previous two games – both defeats.

“I’ve evolved,” Roberts said earlier this month. He described his “trust tree,” the collection of helpers in whom he believed most. “Every moment you feel like that's always the best option, afraid that if you go somewhere else or work with another player and it doesn't work out, then you haven't implemented the best option in that moment,” he said . “That’s the internal battle that every manager has. I lived it.”

Roberts carried that experience into this postseason. He asked his lower-leverage pitchers to soak up outs in Game 2 and Game 5 against the Mets, giving him a full complement of relievers to win the pennant in Game 6. He repeated the approach against the Yankees. Roberts stuck with the less reliable weapons in Game 4. He was confident his group could finish the series on Wednesday.

He was right.

“As a small starter, he had to make some really difficult decisions,” Hernández said. “It seemed like he pushed all the right buttons this October.”

Roberts already has a presence in Cooperstown. He donated the cleats he wore to steal second base for the Boston Red Sox in the 2004 American League Championship Series. After 2020, the Hall collected his jacket and blue Dodger mask, a relic from the pandemic. After Wednesday's win, he presented his commemorative cap. In time, Roberts will have another reason to visit the museum. He can see his own face encased in bronze.

(Top photo by Dave Roberts: Alex Slitz / Getty Images)