Dodgers’ Dave Roberts Reels In Record Contract For A Manager

Even before their March 18 season opener in Tokyo, the Los Angeles Dodgers are setting records.

The four-year extension signed by manager Dave Roberts Monday will pay him more than $8 million per year, making him the top-paid pilot in baseball history.

According to Jon Heyman of The New York Post, it’s a four-year, $32.4 million extension that adds three seasons onto his current contract. And it gives him an annual average of $8.1 million, slightly more than the $8 million annual average of Chicago Cubs manager Craig Counsell, whose record lasted less than two years.

Life After Mattingly

Roberts has been managing the Dodgers since November 2015, when he replaced Don Mattingly despite three straight National League West division titles.

A former infielder, Roberts had been best known as the man whose stolen base against Mariano Rivera helped the Boston Red Sox overcome an 0-3 deficit to win the best-of-seven American League Championship Series over the New York Yankees in 2004.

The Roberts-led Dodgers have won world championships twice in the last five years and are favored to win another in 2025 by many pre-season prognosticators. The team has reached the playoffs 12 years in a row and dominated the National League West, losing the title chase only once during that period.

Roberts led the 2020 Dodgers to a World Series crown after a virus-shortened season, then won again in 2024 by defeating the Yankees in five games.

During the off-season, Los Angeles spent more than $450 million guaranteed, with much of the money deferred, but pushed their 2025 luxury tax payroll to approximately $390 million, according to Roster Resource. The Dodgers and the two New York teams spent more money in the free-agent market than the other 27 teams combined.

A virtual All-Star team, the Dodgers have three former MVPs at the top of their lineup in Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, and Freddie Freeman, plus three-time Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw returrning to a pitching rotation that also includes free agent signees Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki, sophomore star Yoshinobu Yamamoto, trade acquisition Tyler Glasgow, and – when his elbow allows – Ohtani, the only two-way star in the majors.

Free Agent Stars

In addition to Sasaki, free agents signed by the Dodgers since last season include Snell, Tanner Scott, Kirby Yates, Blake Treinen, Michael Conforto, Kike Hernandez, Teoscar Hernandez, and Hye Seong Kim, among others.

Los Angeles led the majors with a 98-64 record last year despite an injury wave that decimated their pitching staff.