Los Angeles Dodgers Expected To Hire Dave Roberts

Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports confirmed the report, as did Dodger Talk co-host David Vassegh.

In the end, however, club president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman opted for Roberts, 43, who spent the past two seasons as bench coach of the San Diego Padres.

According to a report by Bill Shaikin, Dylan Hernandez, and Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times, the Dodgers will name Dave Roberts as their new manager.

The nine interviewed included ex-managers, first-timers, even college coaches: Roberts, Kapler – now the Dodgers’ farm director – Ron Roenicke, Bud Black, Darin Erstad, Dave Martinez, Tim Wallach, Kirk Gibson and Bob Geren.

After being eliminated in the NLDS round of the 2015 playoffs, the Dodgers, with a new, analytics-driven front office that may not have seen eye to eye with Don Mattingly, parted ways with Mattingly despite his leading the team to five straight winning seasons and three straight NL West titles. An announcement is expected on Monday. Mattingly has since been named the manager of the Miami Marlins. However, he was unable to reach the World Series, therefore falling short of expectations.

Roberts played in the major leagues for 10 seasons and famously kept the Boston Red Sox alive in Game 4 of the American League Championship Series against the NY Yankees in 2004 when he stole a base and scored a critical run late in the contest.

There will be tremendous pressure now on Roberts to take over where Mattingly left off and get the Dodgers over the hump and into their first fall classic since 1988.