Cody Snavely
On the most recent episode of “The Show,” a sports podcast hosted by the New York Post and Major League Baseball insiders Jon Heyman and Joel Sherman spoke with Los Angeles Dodgers General Manager Brandon Gomes, who stated that the team would begin extension talks with current manager Dave Roberts in the “coming weeks.”
It is not the first time that the organization has expressed interest in a long-term commitment to Roberts, who is set to become a free agent after the 2025 season. As Gomes stated earlier this winter, the team would focus on the roster first, then Roberts second.
With the 2025 offseason approaching its closing days as pitchers and catchers report to camp in less than two weeks, the Dodgers roster is all but set after their latest signing of 2024 American League all-stare Kirby Yates to a 1-year, $13 million contract.
When Heyman asked Gomes if the Dodgers planned to keep Roberts as the manager moving forward, he replied, “Yes, of course. It’s something we’re going to address here in the coming weeks; we want Dave here; he’s our manager, and he’s been incredible, so let’s get through the bulk of the offseason and will go ahead and talk through that, so that is still the plan.”
Since being hired as the Dodgers manager entering the 2016 season, Roberts has led the club to nine consecutive postseason appearances, eight division titles, four National League Pennants, and two World Series championships. Ignoring the 60-game 2020 campaign where the Dodgers went 43-17, the club has never won less than ninety-one games under his tenure.
Overall, Roberts has a lifetime 851-507 record as a manager, giving him a .627 winning percentage. That’s the highest winning percentage of any manager in MLB history, with at least 1000 games managed in his career, translating to approximately 102 wins in a 162-game season.
In a column by Jack Harris of the Los Angeles Times back in late December, Harris suggests that a record-shattering extension could be on the table for the longtime skipper, breaking Chicago Cubs manager Craig Counsell‘s 4-year, $40 million contract he signed last winter.
Counsell is widely considered to be among the best managers in the game at the moment, but he’s never led a team to the World Series or won a Manager of the Year award. In other words, Roberts’s resume is much more robust than Counsell’s was last winter, and it’s not hard to imagine a high-spending club like the Dodgers rewarding their skipper with a record-breaking deal.
Regardless, Roberts deserves a contract extension to keep him with this current group of Dodgers’ players, and it appears the team has entered its title window for multiple World Series Championships, and a massive part of that is because of Roberts’s leadership.
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