Instead of Should the Los Angeles Dodgers Fire Dave Roberts, the Question Should Be This

For the last seven consecutive seasons, the Los Angeles Dodgers have overwhelmingly won the National League West pennant and have made it to the World Series the last two years alone. Over that span, there have been plenty of moments where the Dodgers and their entire fanbase wish they could go back in time and change their fortunes around.

Last night, was one of those moments in time where the Dodgers and their fans wish they could hit the restart button and restart the entire series over again. After all, all signs pointed to the Dodgers representing the National League in the World Series because they did end up finishing the 2019 regular season with the best record in all of baseball and they had the talent on paper to overpower anyone. Well, that was up until last night's game when the Washington Nationals proved that there was a team capable of overcoming the Dodgers.

For the first handful of innings last night, the game seemed under control thanks to the star-studded talent level of Walker Buehler and the incredible defense provided by the Dodgers position player core. However, shortly after the sixth inning, is when things started to go south due to some poor decision making and the fact that the Dodgers didn't necessarily follow the analytical matchups presented to them, but went with gut instinct instead. In the sixth inning, the first run of the game was scored by the Washington Nationals before Clayton Kershaw came in to relieve Buehler and allowed two more runs in the eighth. By the time the game got to the end of the ninth, things were tied up and that's where the game got even more interesting. Dodgers reliever, Joe Kelly, was on the mound and loaded the bases up for Nationals first baseman, Howie Kendrick, who ended up taking him yard and hit a Grand Slam putting the Nationals up 7-3 before Nationals reliever, Sean Doolittle, slammed the door closed in the bottom of the tenth to secure the victory.

What went from a promising game that looked like the Dodgers were unstoppable, changed very quickly in the matter of a few minutes and later turned into be a complete nightmare for both the Dodgers team and their entire fanbase. As the playoffs have shown before, nothing is guaranteed and this year's been no exception. After all, the St. Louis Cardinals ended up beating the Atlanta Braves to move onto the National League Championship Series against the aforementioned, Washington Nationals, and the Tampa Bay Rays surpassed all odds and made the American League Divisional Series a five-game series instead of a three-game sweep by the Houston Astros, like many expected to happen. The same can be said for last night's game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Washington Nationals and the events that transpired during it.

While many people throughout Dodger Nation were calling for skipper, Dave Roberts, to be fired due to his lack of impactful decision-making during last night's game, it's not as simple as that and requires a bigger perspective. Sure, Dave Roberts definitely should be held accountable by the decisions that he made and held liable for everything that took place. However, it's not fair to blame every single thing solely on Roberts because of the organizational philosophies and fundamentals that the Dodgers have built up over the past couple of years.

Although there has been plenty of smoke over the status of Dave Roberts job dating back to after the game last night, it's simply not going to happen according to a report published by the Los Angeles Times tonight. Simply put, that's probably the right decision because of the culture and the philosophies that Dave Robert has brought to the team as a whole along with how the team has overcome adversities since he took over as manager in November 2015. Prior to that point, it always seemed like something was missing with the team, but Roberts was able to implement a new philosophy and a vision towards always striving to be the best in the west essentially.

Therefore, given that Dave Roberts shouldn't have to shoulder all of the blame and won't be going anywhere prior to the start of Spring Training 2020, the next focal point should be on the front office and the behind-the-scenes work that those individuals do on the trade front. As a result, the Dodgers need to be asking themselves: "Have we done everything in our potential to make impactful trades over the last couple of years?" Answering that question on the outside is easy because they simply haven't and haven't went all-in to the point of making a move to get them a World Series Championship.

While the Dodgers can brag all day long about having a top farm system and plenty of prospects coming up through the pipeline, the fact of the matter is that they have held back over the past few years when they have had the opportunity to make upgrades to their team instead of making all of their prospects available and trying to get the big fish available on the market at the time. For example, rewind to the 2017 season which ended up resulting in a World Series appearance for the Los Angeles Dodgers. In July and August of that season, the Dodgers had a grand opportunity to acquire starting pitcher, Justin Verlander, from the Detroit Tigers. Verlander publicly stated that he was even willing to go to the Dodgers and wouldn't hesitate for a second to sign on the dotted line to make that happen. Instead, the Dodgers opted to hold out in getting Verlander and went and acquired starting pitcher, Yu Darvish. With all due respect to Yu Darvish and the major league pitcher that he is, he is nowhere near the same impactful pitcher that Verlander has been since that time with the Houston Astros.

Additionally, last year at the July 31st Trade Deadline, the Los Angeles Dodgers attempted to make noise by acquiring shortstop, Manny Machado, but it ended up causing more drama and negative vibes in the clubhouse than anything. Granted, Machado was viewed as the top acquisition at last year's deadline, but he didn't put them over the hump enough to give them an opportunity to end the year with a World Series ring and caused plenty of drama in the postseason against the Milwaukee Brewers. In return, the Baltimore Orioles received five-prospects back, but it certainly wasn't worth it given that the Dodgers were unable to overcome the Boston Red Sox in the World Series.

The same philosophy can even be applied to this year's July 31st Trade Deadline. This year, was different because it featured a singular Trade Deadline on July 31st instead of allowing teams the opportunity to acquire players through waivers in August. A few days prior to July 31st, there was a lot of noise about the Dodgers potentially acquiring Pittsburgh Pirates closer, Felipe Vazquez. Vazquez would have been a tremendous addition to the back end of their bullpen to pair with Kenley Jansen, but the Dodgers were hesitant to pull the trigger because they didn't want to surrender their number one prospect, INF Gavin Lux. Although it's understandable why the Dodgers didn't want to give up Lux given that he is going to be a significant part of their future, it still begs the question: "Should they have pulled the trigger and focused more on winning this year instead of looking towards the future?"

The answer to that should be an overwhelming, "Yes", based on what happened in last night's game and the fact that not having a substantial amount of depth at the back end ended up forcing the Dodgers to have an early exit from this year's playoffs. Right there are three different examples of times where the Dodgers failed to execute the right decision and failed to focus more on winning now, while attempting to overcome their postseason drought instead of worrying more about the future. Some of that roots from the head decision maker that the Dodgers brought in back in October 2014 as well.

Unlike nearly every other team around baseball, the Dodgers don't have a distinguished General Manager, but rather a President of Baseball Operations who happens to be Andrew Friedman. Friedman, who was hired by the Dodgers in October 2014, came over from the aforementioned Tampa Bay Rays and was used to relying heavily on player development, scouting, and sticking within a budget given the payroll constraints of the Rays. Ever since being hired, Andrew Friedman has been solely responsible for the decisions made by the Dodgers, but has also been collaborative in his game-planning strategies with skipper, Dave Roberts, and his coaching staff.

As such, the decisions based on last night's game should be blamed against the entire group leading the Dodgers, both down in the dugout as well as in the front office, and the front office needs to be cautious moving forward when it comes to pulling the trigger on a big move that could put the organization over the postseason hump. However, one potential issue that could effect the continuation of the current philosophies and principles put into place by the Dodgers front office regime is the fact that Andrew Friedman's contract has expired with the team. Dodgers ownership has stated on a number of occasions that they want Friedman to continue to lead the team, but have yet to reach a contact extension with him.

Due to that, now might be the time for the Los Angeles Dodgers to go in a different direction and potentially bring in a new decision maker at the top that can make those big moves and won't shy away from them when they are presented. However, nothing has been made official on that and if a change is made, the Dodgers need to bring in someone that relies less on player development inside of the organization and more on additions from the outside. Maybe that will finally allow the Dodgers to get the World Series Championship that they have tried to win for the last seven consecutive seasons.

After all, an organization can only rely on it's prospects so much before those players end up only being prospects and turn out to be nothing more thus limiting the organization from ever winning a World Series Championship. The Dodgers have had seven opportunities to make that happen over the past ten years, but there's nothing to say that it will happen again next year and now just might be the time to make a change at the top and bring in a whole new set of organizational philosophies and beliefs before the window ends up closing for good.