GLENDALE, Ariz.—At one point, Dave Roberts was experimenting with Andre Ethier leading off against righthanders, not exactly Dee Gordon, but an idea. “You can’t always have a guy who gets on base 40 percent of the time and steals 50 bases,” said Roberts. “You make the best of what you have.”
Of the last 10 World Series winners, only the ’09 Yankees and ’13 Red Sox had leadoff hitters who started 130 games in that role with an OBP higher than .350, Derek Jeter and Jacoby Ellsbury.
Only Ethier then fouled a ball off his leg and is out months. Reset.
It’s been that kind of spring for Roberts in his first managerial job. With Zack Greinke already gone, Brett Anderson went down. Reset. Hyun-Jin Ryu isn’t ready. Mike Bolsinger hurt his arm. Reset.
Roberts has a rotation of Clayton Kershaw, Scott Kazmir, Kenta Maeda, Alex Wood and pitchers to be named later. He doesn’t (ital)know(end ital) if Yasmani Grandal’s arm is all right, or how the outfield will be set. He is settling into a job that has four former general managers in a front office as large as the U.S. Senate, which sometimes leads to the outside impression that the chain of command is a morning fog.
Yet the one thing that is eminently clear is that Roberts and his coaching staff doesn’t discuss the might-have-beens or what-ifs or medicals. “We’re trying to bring a sincere energy, build a atmosphere or trust and respect and emphasize that what we have to do is do the little things, play the game the right and go inning-by-inning,” says Roberts. “With the players we have, if we grind it out we will be fine.”
So, for now, the Dodgers will try to figure out exactly what they have after Kershaw, and how the bullpen leads to Kenley Jansen with Chris Hatcher, J.P. Howell, Luis Avilan, Yimi Garcia, Pedro Baez and Louis Coleman, for now. They will see in time if the 155 pound Maeda can hold up on four days rest, exactly what Kazmir is at this point in his career, whether Julio Urias or Jose DeLeon can be ready by mid-season.
We will see in time if Joc Pederson can cut down his swing and make contact. How Chase Utley, Justin Turner and Howie Kendrick work.
“There is a lot of talent here,” Roberts says, and it’s interesting to observe the work coaches George Lombard, Chris Woodward, Josh Bard, Tim Hyers, and Turner Ward have put in around venerable pitching coach Rick Honeycutt. This clearly is a staff set in place to develop, which is the mantra Stan Kasten and Andrew Friedman have preached in the attempt to transition from the game’s largest payroll to a more traditional scouting and development organization that can use their international clout (like the near $100M they spent on Cubans this winter) in addition to their scouting and instructional philosophies. And of course, they can still afford to take on contracts in the heat of the summer.
One dinner evening is revelatory about the Roberts regime. Start with this premise: it goes without saying that getting a big year out of Yasiel Puig at the age of 25 is vital. That entails the building of a two-way trust between the staff and Puig. It entails health, which also entails trust of the medical staff, which hasn’t always been the case for Puig.
Friedman, Roberts and the staff understand trust and it’s significance in the relationship with Cuban players, who have escaped a country that rewards people who turn in their neighbors, “they cannot trust anyone at home, how are they going to trust people in this country?” says fellow refugee Ariel Prieto.
Roberts, Lombard, Woodward, Jose Vizcaino and Manny Mota took Puig to dinner. Now, Lombard, the grandson of the former dean of Harvard Business School and son of Posy Lombard, a brilliant and literary Civil Rights leader, is invested in the Cuban community in Miami. His wife is a Cuban-American. Everyone in his family is bilingual.
And Puig is Lombard’s project, and anyone who knows George Lombard would not be surprised that they have built a relationship as Lombard is the outfield and baserunning coach. At dinner, Puig told Lombard he wants to win a gold glove.
Lombard bolted up from the table and animatedly showed how he believes Puig has to set himself before each pitch, how he has to back up throws from the other outfielders…
Within the next week, Puig backed up a throw and saved a defensive base. He also stole second.
“I think Yasiel has a chance to have a monster year,” Roberts says. “I think he understands we’re all in on this with him. We’ve gotten to appreciate that he is a really good young man who is still making his adjustment to another culture.” An adjustment made more complicated by the voyage and traffic pattern it took to get him to Los Angeles, with very little time spent on culture vs. baseball skills, and avoiding the hamstring pulls and other maladies that have limited his on-field time.
We don’t know if Puig can play 130-140 games, and if he can, what he can be. We don’t know about Pederson, or whether Trayce Thompson can develop into a force, and what the starting pitching is going to look like come July.
We do expect the Giants will be the Giants, and that the athletic, aggressive Diamondbacks are going to be very good.
Dave Roberts can’t think about the Giants or Diamondbacks right now. It’s March. He is concerned only with the Dodgers and what each morning and inning presents. He is who he is, an energetic man whom everyone respects and who worked hard for everything in life, characteristics that he believes will work, when and if we figure out exactly what these Dodgers are going to be.