Steve Webb
LOS ANGELES, CA — Give Andrew Friedman credit. This couldn’t have been his favorite press conference of his career. I mean, what can you say when your team and its mighty lineup won a grand total of one postseason game? Not much, it turns out.
“I feel the expectations here are incredibly high, and that’s awesome. I love how passionate our fans are. Those expectations are shared by everyone that works here, in the front office, the coaches room, Dave, and our players,” Friedman said. “I personally don’t think the criticism that Dave has received has been fair. I think it’s human nature to point the finger at someone and I feel like this was an organizational failure in the postseason.
“I feel like our regular season goal, we accomplished. We put ourselves in the very best position you can to go out and win 11 games in October. We didn’t come close to doing that.”
Friedman was pretty tight-lipped about what could be done to prevent a similar meltdown in subsequent years. But whatever happens to the lineup, Friedman assured the press that it would “100%” be manager Dave Roberts who would be guiding the ship.
“I don’t feel like that’s what’s needed,” Friedman said when ask if there would be a change in the dugout. “If I felt like a different voice would help us cash in those chances with runners in scoring position, then yeah, maybe we would… I feel like Dave and his coaching staff did an incredible job to lead this team during the regular season to 111 wins, and don’t feel like it was a switch that they just turned off.”
When ask if it was truly Dave Roberts, and not the front office, who was pulling the strings in the series, Friedman bristled a bit. “Is that really a narrative? After every single postseason I’ve answered that question,” he said. “So I don’t feel like it’s a narrative – only based on the question at the end of it that keeps coming up.” Friedman said that Roberts has “a hundred percent” autonomy. “And we’ve answered this a lot of times. … If it ever changes, I’ll let people know. I don’t think it ever will.”
As for the players, Friedman didn’t have much to offer, only saying cryptically that “change is inevitable,” He however opined upon the future of Clayton Kershaw, whose one-year free agent contract is now over. “My strong hope is that he’s pitching here next year,” he said, “but like I said last year, you know, for him to take the time to the time and put his head together with Ellen and figure out what makes the most sense for their family.” Friedman said that he was willing to wait on Kershaw’s decision, and that once it came, he would have a better sense of how to proceed with other moves that a Kershaw departure might necessitate.
Finally, Friedman struck a philosophical note. “Now the question is how can we best use this time?,” he asked, referring to the offseason. “Use it wisely to not be in this position next year.”
Indeed.
