Dave Roberts accidentally peddled owners' lockout wishes in misplaced TV appearance

Dave Roberts puts his foot in his mouth a lot. He publicly confirmed that the Dodgers had talked to Shohei Ohtani in 2023, even though the player was trying to keep his dealings under lock and key. Roberts constantly gets injury updates wrong and sometimes finds himself at odds with the injured players themselves. This year, he speculated that the Canadian government had something to do with the Dodgers' delays out of Toronto during the World Series.

There's no question Roberts is a Hall of Fame manager and, by the end of his tenure, might be the best manager the Dodgers have ever had. But everyone knows that he just really needs to decline to comment sometimes.

He definitely should've on Tuesday night, when he appeared on Kevin Hart and Kenan Thompson's Amazon Prime show "Good Sports." Thompson asked if Roberts thought baseball should have a salary cap (if you're already nervous, you should be).

Roberts said, "You know what? I'm all right with that. I think the NBA has done a nice job of revenue sharing with the players and the owners. But if you're going to kind of suppress spending at the top, I think that you got to raise the floor to make those bottom-feeders spend money, too."

Dave Roberts outs himself as pro-salary cap (and salary floor) on TV appearance

Decline to comment, Dave. Just decline to comment.

There are two contingents that would approve of Roberts' comments — owners and Dodgers haters — but a very key group of people that wouldn't: his own players.

When Commissioner Rob Manfred showed up in the Phillies' clubhouse to discuss the implementation of a salary cap, Bryce Harper ran him out of the room. That incident spiraled into a host of other incidents (Mark DeRosa may or may not have lightly warned some Phillies players), none of which provided any hope that the owners and players might be able to avoid a lockout after 2026.

Roberts is beholden to his actual employer, Dodgers owner Mark Walter, but he also has a clubhouse to keep harmonious and relationships with his players to maintain. A salary cap as long as it comes with a salary floor is hardly a new or even a controversial idea, but it means more coming from an actual team employee and a figurehead of a back-to-back World Series championship team.

Someone get this guy some media training.