Dodgers fans should have even more appreciation for Dave Roberts after Alex Cora firing

It's been nearly eight years since then-Red Sox lefty Chris Sale struck out then-Dodgers shortstop Manny Machado to secure the 2018 World Series for Alex Cora's Boston squad. Even back then, that World Series was a heavyweight managerial match up. Cora was perhaps the brightest up-and-coming star in baseball as a manager, while longtime Dodgers manager Dave Roberts was in year three of his tenure with Los Angeles and had just piloted the club to back-to-back NL pennants.

While both the Dodgers and Red Sox looked poised for long-term success with relatively new managers at the helm at the time, flashing forward to today highlights how different things have gone for the two franchises and just how lucky fans in L.A. are to have Roberts in the dugout. While Cora was unceremoniously fired over the weekend after his club started the season with an ugly 10-17 record, Roberts and the Dodgers are still going strong as the consensus best team in baseball.

Looking at how things have gone for both franchises since that final pitch of the 2018 season, it's easy to see why Roberts remains firmly in place with the Dodgers while Cora is out with the Red Sox. Los Angeles has made the playoffs in every season of Roberts's tenure with the club, and they've won the World Series in three of the last six seasons.

While the Dodgers are the reigning World Series champs two years in a row, Cora and the Red Sox were not able to so much as make the postseason in back-to-back seasons at any point during his tenure. Ignoring the shortened 2020 season, when Cora did not manage the club while suspended for his role in the Astros sign-stealing scandal during his time as Houston's bench coach, the 50-year-old skipper led the Red Sox for seven full seasons in total.

Those seven seasons saw the Red Sox finish over .500 just four times, including just once in the last four years. After Cora's rookie season as manager in 2018, Boston made the playoffs just twice under his guidance and went just 513-487 overall. By contrast, the Dodgers have won at least 91 games under Roberts each year. Whether he's responding to sour grapes from other managers or making bold lineup changes in April, Dodgers fans are lucky to have Roberts in the fold.

Dave Roberts isn't the only person Dodgers fans have to thank for the team's success

There's no doubt that Roberts is a vital part of the Dodgers' well-oiled machine, and he deserves praise for succeeding where Cora failed in Boston. Even so, it must be acknowledged that the Dodgers have plenty of other advantages that the Red Sox have lacked in recent years. L.A. has enjoyed the services of baseball's best front office, led Andrew Friedman, throughout Roberts's entire tenure.

That's a stark difference between the Dodgers and Red Sox, as Boston is on their third Chief Baseball Officer since they last hoisted the commissioner's trophy. While Dave Dombrowski assembled that winning 2018 team and Chaim Bloom turned a barren farm system into one rife with top prospect talent, neither was able to survive in Boston for more than a few years. There's little reason to think Craig Breslow's tenure will be any different.

Some of the blame also goes all the way to the top of the organization. The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal makes a compelling argument for Red Sox owner John Henry's culpability for the team's struggles, describing his ownership style as "incoherent, dysfunctional, and forever poised to overreact." By contrast, Dodgers chairman Mark Walter has been a steady hand at the top of the organization, green-lighting top level spending and trusting his baseball people to do the rest.

Perhaps if Henry followed Walter's playbook, the Red Sox would be as formidable in the AL East as the Dodgers are in the NL West. As things stand, Roberts and the rest of the organization figure to be winning baseball games together long after the divorce between Cora and the Red Sox is old news.

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