Dave Roberts will stand alone as greatest manager in Dodgers history

The number of people who have managed the Dodgers to 1,000 wins is only a third of those who have walked on the moon.

There was Wilbert Robinson, who was in charge of the team when it played in Brooklyn and its mascot was the Robins.

Walter Alston, of course.

Tommy Lasorda.

And after the Dodgers’ 9-3 victory over the Athletics in Sacramento on Tuesday, David Ray Roberts, who is now 1,000-605 in 11 seasons.

That’s it. That’s the entire list.

Which means that at very least, Roberts has earned a place on the franchise’s managerial Mt. Rushmore.

His credentials will be further enhanced in the coming years, and by the time he walks away, he won’t have anyone next to him. He will stand alone.

Decades from now, Dave Roberts will be considered the greatest manager in Dodgers history.

Go ahead, call him lucky. Say that he just happened to be in the right place at the right time. You wouldn’t be wrong.

But the value of a manager is specific to the situation.

Being the right man to manage Team X doesn’t necessarily make someone the right man to manage Team Y. Conversely, not being the right manager for one team doesn’t mean a particular person isn’t right for another.

And there isn’t a better manager than Roberts to lead this particular group of Dodgers at this particular time under these particular circumstances.

Of the 69 managers to win 1,000 games, Roberts was the quickest to reach the milestone. Only five managers in baseball history have a better winning percentage than Roberts’ .623 and they all managed exclusively in the Negro Leagues.

But what will ultimately elevate Roberts above the likes of Alston and Lasorda are championships. 

In sports, history is recorded in definite terms. As specific details are lost in the passing of time, titles remain as the clearest measurement of success.

And with three World Series championships, Roberts has already won one more than Lasorda and only one fewer than Alston. Lasorda managed for 21 seasons, Alston for 23.

If the Dodgers win another World Series this year, that will be four championships in 11 years for Roberts.

How many will he have by retirement? Five? Six?

You could say Alston was more adaptable. Or that Lasorda was a better motivator. Those would be entirely reasonable arguments.

You could say Roberts’ record is more than anything a reflection of the talent the Dodgers have assembled. Roberts wouldn’t disagree with that. He basically said so to his players in the team’s postgame toast.

“Thank you so much for making me a great coach,” Roberts said. “What I always tell our coaches, what makes a great coach or manager: Great players.”

Every manager has a different job, and Roberts’ is to not mess things up. Roberts has done that masterfully.

The Dodgers have reached the postseason in each of their 10 seasons under Roberts, winning the National League nine times over that period. In the one season in which they were beaten out for the division title, they won 106 games.

That consistency shouldn’t be taken for granted. 

The greater the talent in a clubhouse, the larger the egos, and Roberts has kept this potential powder keg from exploding season after season.

“It’s probably easy to write in a lineup, for sure,” Mookie Betts said. “But to manage so many personalities, injuries, guys coming up, guys coming down, it’s a lot.”

Roberts has done everything from integrating Shohei Ohtani into what was already the best team in baseball to guiding Betts through his ordeals with self-doubt.

As a tactician, Roberts is decisive.

He identifies inflection points and addresses them with the necessary level of urgency. Lasorda was known for coaxing more of his pitchers, particularly his starters. Roberts removes them before they lose games.

But the urgency with which Roberts manages depends on the situation. He is a different manager in October than in the six months before. 

Which isn’t to say there aren’t regular-season games in which he’s somewhere in between.

Take the Dodgers’ series finale in San Diego over the weekend.

With a two-run lead and a chance to extend a division lead over the second-place Padres to 10 games, Roberts managed aggressively, removing Emmet Sheehan after only five innings, deploying fireman Alex Vesia in the sixth inning and Tanner Scott in the seventh. That left Edgardo Henriquez, who hadn’t closed all year, to pitch the ninth inning.

Roberts’ strengths lend themselves to the demands of leading the current iteration of the Dodgers in the modern baseball landscape. Roberts knows how to deal with strong personalities. He manages the regular season with the postseason in mind.

And once he’s in the playoffs, he moves with the decisiveness required today.

The 10 ½ seasons Roberts has managed up to this point can be divided into three distinct phases:

1. The early years in which he symbolized the promise of a franchise in the process of becoming the sport’s dominant force.

2. The frustrating middle years in which he was the scapegoat for the team’s failures.

3. The current period in which he is celebrated and beloved for guiding baseball’s most expensive collection of talent.

There will be at least one more stage: Post-career, when his name will be synonymous with everything his team won with him in charge. The scoreboard on his side, and history will judge him accordingly.

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