When looking for the ingredients to build a championship team, what comes to mind? Of course, talented players would help, but even the biggest talent pool won’t win a title without a coach who can put everything together. It’s no secret the coach’s primary job is to put the players in the best possible position to win games. Part of that process is understanding all of the analytics (fancy word for statistics) and translating the data into something the players can use against the opponents. Sometimes, the coach, or manager in this case, can get too engulfed in the numbers, and it ultimately comes back to hurt the team on the field.
This is the reality the Los Angeles Dodgers have sitting on their laps as of today. If someone was to say the Dodgers have the deepest and most talented roster in Major League Baseball, there probably wouldn’t be much pushback. The problem is they have a manager whose decisions regarding the pitching staff leaves a team loaded with talent coming up short of their championship goals, with the exception of 2020. The latest blunders from L.A. head man Dave Roberts resulted in his squad being eliminated by the Atlanta Braves, with the final blow coming in the form of a 4-2 loss in Game 6 of the National League Championship Series Saturday night in Atlanta. With the win, the Braves move on to face the Houston Astros in the World Series, with Game 1 set for Tuesday night in Houston. As for the Dodgers, they head into an offseason left to wonder what could have been once again.
While Atlanta was the team that ultimately knocked L.A. out of the playoffs, the battle with the San Francisco Giants set the tone for a move the Dodgers wouldn’t be able to overcome in the long run. In Game 5 of the NL Division series, Roberts decided to go with the opener, an analytic-driven strategy where a pitcher from the bullpen starts the game instead of a normal starter. The starting pitcher would have been Julio Urias, who was a 20-game winner during the regular season, won Game 2 of the series and would have been on a normal rotation. Instead, Roberts used two bullpen guys, and Urias didn’t see the mound until the third inning. While that move was perplexing, the choice that really put L.A.’s pitching staff in a bind going forward was bringing ace Max Scherzer in to close out the game. Everything worked out for the Dodgers to advance to the NLCS, but the moves caused Scherzer to come out early in Game 2, and miss his scheduled Game 6 start because his arm was still fatigued. In the NLCS, Roberts had two “bullpen games,” using eight pitchers in Game 1 (the first one) and nine in Game 3 (Game 5 was the other bullpen game). With a starting rotation already without Trevor Bauer (legal issues) and Clayton Kershaw (arm trouble), the last thing L.A. needed was to strain an already-short starting rotation even more with bad decisions.
As horrible as that sounds, the history of Roberts overworking the pitching staff goes back a few years. In 2017, the Dodgers probably should have defeated the Astros, sign-stealing scandal not withstanding, but the skipper continued to let analytics drive his decision-making, and the pitchers didn’t have much left when Game 7 came around. In 2018, L.A. was down 2-1 in the World Series against the Boston Red Sox, and Rich Hill (now with the New York Mets) was pitching a gem in Game 4, to the tune of allowing just one hit over 6 1/3 innings. Back in the day, numbers like that says Hill would stay in until his arm falls off, but in the analytics world, stats say it’s time to pull him due to the vaunted third time through the batting order. So Roberts decided to pull Hill, and the bullpen would get shelled for nine runs in the final three innings. The Dodgers lost Game 4 9-6, and would lose the series in five games. In 2019, it was the eventual-champion Washington Nationals who would take advantage of curious usage of the bullpen by Roberts.
Over the years, the Dodgers have developed a roster with an embarrassment of riches. The batting lineup is beyond potent when healthy, and the pitching staff is loaded with electric arms. They have both big pockets to sign high-priced free agents, and a farm system popping with talented prospects. All of the bookmarks of a dynasty are in place, but coaching can kill any vision of that before it starts. This is what’s happening in L.A., because the decisions made by Roberts between the lines (the front office is probably complicit in what drives this line of thinking) have turned the Dodgers into an organization that has underachieved. Even in 2020, the pitching staff moves seemed over-the-top, but they just happened to work out. Nine times out of 10, they have not, and even though the big picture has L.A. being a successful organization over the past few seasons, one can’t help but think there’s a lot of meat left on the bone. If the Dodgers want to salvage what could be a run of titles, their best chance is probably with someone other than Roberts as the manager. If the decision is to keep him, get ready for more disappointment in the City of Angels.
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