Is It Joe Maddon Time?

Paul Laduca tweeted that Roberts manages like he’s “intimidated or scared” (something to that effect) and I think he is right. Managing with no sense of urgency, using CK because he wants CK to exorcise the post season demons, trying to get 2 innings out of Kelly almost like he was managing for an extended extra inning game.

In the playoffs you have to manage with a sense of urgency and if a pitcher can only get one out and you take him you have to. With so many “bullets left in the gun” you have to use them up in a win or go home scenario.

With May, KJ, Kolarek, Urias, Stripling all available you have to ask yourself was Doc managing for an extra inning affair or an eye on the next game and completely forgetting the need to win NOW? He should have matched up better and we, as fans, deserve better.

Not sure who that is, but I fully expect for us to be surprised in the next week to ten days with some breaking news of Doc being let go, perhaps some significant coaching changes, or even a new FO. There will be changes, doing the same thing and expecting a different result it insanity.

maybe its friedman that controls everything

Far be it for me to disagree with Molly Knight, a great writer, loved her book, and she has no doubt excellent sources, but if she’s saying (I don’t subscribe to the Athletic so I couldn’t read the article, yah I know) that the Dodgers should fire Roberts because the Dodgers got knocked out of the playoffs in the first round, that’s an extreme over reaction and I’m sorry … makes no sense. I’m not sure where she gets the idea that the front office isn’t heavily involved in the plan (who to hit, who follows Buehler etc. When I actually had some direct insight (which I no longer have) into the Dodgers that certainly wasn’t the case, which was the reason Roberts was hired in the first place. It was his ability to work directly with the front office to help create a plan. Just listening to MLB radio and that question came up. Should Roberts be fired? Both analysts said absolutely not, noting that the front office has a lot of input in decision making. They then discussed the major part of a manager’s job, working with all the personalities and getting them to buy into the plan. He does that incredibly well and that’s no easy task, especially with the Dodgers using players like pieces to a puzzle every day. For that to work, you have to create buy-in, not something every manager could do. Seriously, someone wants to trade Seager. That’s crazy. But from time to time somebody has written about the incredible technology available to make players better or improve their skills. Yes, some of it is useful, but it still didn’t prevent Seager from swinging at the down and in breaking stuff or prevent players from chasing balls outside the zone. It still comes down to players playing well, pitch recognition, not chasing or if you’re a pitcher, locating and making the pitch break correctly. It’s interesting that the runner-up to Roberts for the job, Gabe Kepler, was fired by the Phillies today.

Grady Little got fired for less. Doc did his best Grady Little times 4 last night. Doc is a stubborn man and a spin master. Tough to spin this one. His luck ran out. The players bail him out more times than not. But not this time.

But the players didn’t get it done. They didn’t “execute” as Mark likes to say. Their GOAT actually turned out to be one along with Pollock, Seager, Bellinger and Kelly. (I said at he beginning that Kelly would be a key to the Dodger’s future. That proved to be prophetic but in the wrong way) Doc’s managing was poor but they play poorly when it mattered. .186 against lefties won’t cut it along with 65 K’s. The players needed to show up and perform and they didn’t.

When I first got on this blog I asked the question of how much of Doc’s decisions are influenced by folks upstairs. Mark pounded me about Doc being his own man and how there isn’t an implant in Doc’s head from upstairs, so I shut about it. Today this question was raised by Ben Lindbergh “For the most part, modern managers don’t act on their own, and Roberts may have been drawing on proprietary intel or following front-office orders.” Maybe my original question wasn’t so far fetched. I’m not suggesting that that was the case with in game decisions like last night but maybe there is more intervention on line ups and personnel stuff than we know. Inevitably it doesn’t matter.

Some great, thorough posts today. I’m sorry it ended this way but…..That’s Baseball.

I’ll pass big time on Joe Maddon.

I have always wanted AJ Ellis to manage the Dodgers.

Good afternoon everyone,

long time reader. Im still feeling angry, sad, and sick to my stomach from this series. A couple of things that I may be wrong about from this is, Muncy and Buehler showed up to play, 5, 35, 11 to name a few are awesome players but at most times of the series seemed lost and at times already beat during their at bats. Kolarek had been getting big outs in this series, what do you say to him? where is the trust? Rich Hill game four starter, you could see him hobbling around the mound at times hurting, what is that, so a hurt Rich Hill is better than a healthy May, Urias? I know the experience and pressure of the game, I just think that when someone is hurt they don’t give you the best chance to win. I think some of those moves in a play off series is what gets managers on the hot seat. Anyway God bless all of you. Still a DODGER FAN FOR LIFE.

Bluto,

You followed my post with this:

“The biggest issue last night was NOT the offense.

The team had a 3-1 lead and six outs to go.

A 3-0 lead with twelve outs to go, was when the mismanagement began.

The manager totally wasted that opportunity with nonsensical moves.

SIX OUTS.”

Do you not understand the importance of tacking on runs during a game? The object is to put the game for the opposition as far out of reach as possible. No doubt that Doc’s bullpen usage played a very large role in yesterday’s loss. But if the Dodgers had 4, 5, or 6 runs or even more, might not that have made a difference in the bullpen usage, and therefore the outcome. The fact is, the Dodgers did not score a single run after the 2nd inning. And that is something I was thinking about throughout the game, wondering if the Dodgers squandering scoring opportunities was going to come back and haunt them. And yes, it did.

Bluto/ Brooklyn

You’re both right.

It kinda feels like you are saying:

“If only the offense had made it impossible for Roberts to fuck it up”

Perhaps I can use different words:

There are only a handful of games for a good manager to differentiate from a poor one. They can all:

Bat better earlier than worse ones. Not give away outs.

Seek favorable matchups.

Research tendencies.

Take out tired pitchers or ineffective ones.

Yesterday’s game was one of the few that the mangers mattered.

The Dodgers scored three runs off Strasburg in seven innings.Ib think his career ERA is about three over nine. they did their job. They could have done more, but the offense did their job.

Roberts’ job was to work his bullpen to get six outs. If he had played matchups inefficiently and used:

Urias, Kelly, May, maeda, Jansen and kolarek EACH for just one out he would have done his job. Poorly, but he would have done it.

Instead he butchered it. Badly.

When he had to do his job, or what defines his job. He failed. The offense did not.

Go look at my posts from yesterday. You can see a more granular breakdown

It feels like this will either be a chance to make major changes and start off to rebuild the roster in a better way; or this will mark the end of our major run, and we will have a mass exodus, starting with Friedman, including Roberts, Geren, Honeycutt, various players. I hope that the ownership has some top GM names in mind in case Friedman does what Billy Beane decided not to do in the past, and leave the A’s for bigger money in Boston. Things turn on a dime sometimes. It’s hard for me to imagine that next season will look like the kind of fairly seamless transition from this one, the way it did after last season.

Looking on the bright side…

We didn’t lose three World Series in a row.

It is better to have played 5 post season games, than to not make the postseason.

Cory and Cody are still a few years away from their primes, Muncy is in his prime, Lux and Smith will be better for the experience.

We have a lot of young and talented starting pitchers in Bueller, May, Gonsolin and Urias.

We have a strong farm system loaded with prospect capital.

There’s a lot of good things going on here.

I am going to disagree with AC a little. We had some players who did not play well, but baseball is a tough game to play. We played well enough to win the last game. We were up 3-1 going into the eighth. The heart of the line up for the Nats was coming up. Maeda was our shut down reliever in this series. Maeda should if pitched the 8th. Then you have Janseń, Kelly and Baez for the 9th.

Kershaw is not the pitcher he was 3-4 years ago. Doc, in my opinion, is totally responsible for that loss. If he does not know that Kershaw is not the same pitcher, then he should not be managing. Doc needs to go, but I do not think management has the courage to fire him.

We have a very good group of young players. We are going to waste this talent if Doc continues as manager.

The second thing I want to say is that Doc does not know how to play small ball to add on another run when you have the lead. It is all walks and HR’s.

Docs gotta go. After the game he still would not admit he managed poorly. I was surprised

they kept him after starting Darvish against Houston. He should have been sent packing then. Now, after this latest fiasco….well, adios, Doc.

When the fans couldn’t leave fast enough after the grand slam, the front office should see that we are tired of the same stupid on field decisions.

Hate to say it but Seager should be traded.

In a city the size of L.A. there HAS to be a shrink that can turn Belli around in the post season.

As for CK…we know he isn’t a reliever. Maybe now he will see it too.

Maybe it’s not the day to think about this much, but I wonder about Kershaw’s future here. We know that he was a great pitcher, though he was never Koufax. He is a great credit to the game, he does so much charity work. He is not a great pitcher any longer. And there is now this pall that sort of hangs over him. The fans will never desert him, but neither will they be thrilled when he wins an early season game.

I usually don’t do this, but sometimes on a day like this, it is cathartic, so I was listening to the sports talk shows here. And Petros and Money both thought that Kershaw sitting on the bench after he went out of the game, head slumped, not looking at anything, was not appropriate; that he should have been up there cheering with the rest of his teammates in a tied game where we could certainly still win the series, rather than looking like the personal portrait of futility. Now, I don’t think him doing that cost us the game, that would be silly. And I certainly don’t think that Kershaw is a selfish player or an unduly egotistical one. But “the story of Kershaw” should not be a saga which hangs over the next season. He’s never going to overcome the story of his history of problems in the postseason, unless he goes to another team, where he probably will be the MVP of the series, the way things have gone around here.

I wonder what his role will be next year. #2 starter? #4? Support for the young pitchers? Will the fans actually start to get tired of him, not as a person, but as a pitcher on the team? I had very mixed feelings when we re-signed him. I finally decided that it would have not been right to have let him go then, even though his salary would be about 15% of the entire payroll. But he is certainly overpaid, he is making more money than any pitcher in baseball, I think. The more recent Dodgers organizations have been very loyal in that way, to their credit. In the older days, they traded Newcombe. let Snider and Hodges go in the expansion draft, and even traded Jackie Robinson to the Giants. In a later era here, we traded Garvey and Cey and Hershiser. Was that cold and disloyal? Or is it better than paying someone past his prime a very large salary, and limiting our ability to get additional top players?

Some final comments:

Logic says that this team is no better than 2017-2018 teams.

Many players have no championship level.

Roberts it’s no better than Mattingly.

No catchers mix managed to obtain Grandals level.

Playoff absence of Puig is undeniable.

Keep Buehler, Bellinger, Ryu, Muncy, May, Gonzo, and Kolarek, build from them a new team.

No offense but the rest seemed to be expendable.

See you next year.

Two things:

1) The overwhelming majority here seem to think that Roberts should go.

2) L.A. Times reporting that it has already been decided that Doc is coming back.

On the other hand, Kershaw has not yet been named permanent closer.

It seems like every single article I read today about the Dodgers, and there were many, suggested that Doc be fired. It seems like the consensus here as well.

I think Doc is going to be the scapegoat here. He’s made very well documented questionable move for three post-seasons in a row. He’s on a new contract, but that doesn’t mean crap to a team that has a brand to think of. You all might not believe this, but I think AF’s ass is hanging in the wind as well. Sure they said the right things about how they think it’s a done deal that he comes back, but there is some egg on his face for giving Roberts that extension, Pollock and Kelly (his two big free agents) sucking, the non-trade deadline and even Clayton’s extension.

I think with this much noise in the media calling for Robert’s head, I think (hope) this will be the last we see of him wearing “Panatone 294”. We’re also going to see if AF is tempted to bolt for another team since the heat is on, or if he’s going to bet on himself and revise his approach.

Maybe this is a wakeup call, or maybe this is the result of a system that Kasten is committed to. As a business, they have got to be doing incredible after cashing in an attendance record amid ticket and parking increases. Not to mention the extra cash that comes with the All-Star game. I think the time is right to invest in the product and come out of their austerity plan. It’s gotta hurt seeing the Nats grab that post-season revenue for the next round or two.

Doc is coming back.

Agree wholeheartedly with this assessment from 59.

“I think the time is right to invest in the product and come out of their austerity plan.”

And Plaschke agrees that he should return.