Dave Roberts Reveals How He Plans on Motivating Dodgers This Year
Winning back-to-back World Series championship is not easy. Just ask half of the past 24 World Series winners which haven’t even made the playoffs the following season.
However, this offseason has set the Los Angeles Dodgers up for a potential title run and, on paper, they should win.
“It’s extremely difficult to win a World Series and it’s even more difficult to repeat as champion,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said to the Orange County Register. “During our offseason conversations as a staff, we agreed that the two biggest factors — beyond obviously how difficult it is to win — is, one, there is a kind of complacency that can consume a group after winning a World Series and, two, you have usually had to red-line your pitching in October in order to win those 11 games.”
Because of the amount of talent and depth on the Dodgers roster this season, manager Dave Roberts is tasked with motivating the group when the full squad gathers at Camelback Ranch in a few days to begin their journey back to the World Series.
“The parade really had a profound effect on guys,” Friedman said. “Talking to them, there is a real sense that they want to do whatever is possible to have that feeling again and a real commitment to doing everything they can to make this a golden era of Dodgers baseball.”
That “golden era” is what Roberts will be focused on when he delivers his speech to the team. Roberts embraces it and said words like “legacy” and “standard” will be featured in his remarks to the full squad, according to Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register.
The Dodgers beat writer also hinted that Roberts “might reference dynasties in other sports like the Lakers, Chicago Bulls and New England Patriots as being in a class the Dodgers could join.”
But every year, Major League Baseball wants to do something to make the trip back to the Promised Land tougher.
The 2024 Dodgers became just the eighth team in 30 years, since the introduction of the Wild card, to win the World Series after finishing with the best regular-season record.
When Roberts was asked why baseball has gone so long without a repeat champion, his response was simple.
“It’s just hard. I’m sorry. That’s a bad answer. But it’s just hard. It’s the honest answer. It’s the truth.”
Now, the Dodges are going to try and be the team that breaks the trend.
