The San Diego Padres rid themselves of Bruce Bochy in 2006, after the only consecutive postseason appearances in franchise history. The Padres have not returned to the playoffs since then, but Bochy has led the San Francisco Giants to three World Series championships.
The Padres replaced Bochy with Bud Black, who was astute enough to retain his job under four general managers and win one manager of the year award. In 2015, the new owners agreed that a fresh face would be best in the dugout; the Colorado Rockies just snapped up Black as their new manager.
Dave Roberts was Black's bench coach. The Padres passed up Roberts twice _ as the interim manager and, without so much as an interview, as the permanent replacement for Black. But Roberts dazzled the Dodgers in an interview and won the manager's job in Los Angeles, then led the Padres' fiercest rivals to the National League West championship.
On Tuesday, as the Padres continued to dig out from the wreckage of a last-place season in which their general manager was suspended and their team president was fired, Roberts was honored as National League manager of the year.
Roberts became the first Dodgers manager to win the award since Tommy Lasorda in 1988, the last year the Dodgers appeared in the World Series. Every other NL West team has had a manager win the award since then.
Roberts, who never had managed at any level, made runners-up out of Joe Maddon of the Chicago Cubs and the Washington Nationals' Dusty Baker, each a three-time manager of the year.
Roberts won with 16 first-place votes. Maddon, who led the Cubs to the World Series championship, finished second with eight votes. (Voting was conducted before the postseason.)
Baker who led the Nationals to the NL East championship, placed third with four votes. The Miami Marlins' Don Mattingly, whose divorce from the Dodgers created the vacancy that Roberts filled, finished fifth in the voting.
Terry Francona, who led the Cleveland Indians to the American League pennant, was honored as AL manager of the year. Jeff Banister of the Texas Rangers finished second, with Buck Showalter of the Baltimore Orioles third.
When Mattingly left, Dodgers minor league director Gabe Kapler was widely considered the favorite to replace him. But as ownership urged the front office to expand its search to external candidates, Roberts wowed the Dodgers in interviews and emerged atop a field of nine.
None of the three finalists _ Roberts, Kapler and University of Nebraska coach and former Angels outfielder Darin Erstad _ previously had managed in the major leagues.
Roberts neither hid nor objected to the fact that the front office was heavily involved in daily decisions, but he established trust with his players by checking in with every player, every day.
With the Dodgers setting a major league record by putting 28 different players on the disabled list, and with the front office prone to making a roster move for even the slightest of advantages on any given day, the Dodgers' media notes listed 206 transactions this year _ an average of more than one per game.
Roberts was left to deal with the human fallout, on a daily basis.
"For me, he has maintained genuine optimism through all of the adversity we have faced this year, even behind closed doors," Andrew Friedman, the Dodgers' president of baseball operations, said in August. "That gives me even more confidence that is the face he is portraying to our players in the clubhouse.
"He's been challenged as much as I can imagine someone being challenged in Year One, just with the sheer volume of injuries. To handle it the way he has, in his first year, is incredible."
Roberts also was challenged by the two-month absence of ace Clayton Kershaw. The Dodgers had fallen eight games behind the San Francisco Giants, but Roberts trusted his players rather than call a team meeting to remind them of the obvious stakes.
Roberts invested heavily in building a personal relationship with temperamental outfielder Yasiel Puig, but the manager was not shy about calling out Puig when the Dodgers demoted him to the minor leagues in August. Roberts also empowered the veteran leadership of Kershaw, Adrian Gonzalez, Chase Utley and Justin Turner.
Turner said he respected Mattingly but said he saw something special in Roberts.
"His ability to address things immediately is what sets him apart from most guys," Turner said in August. "When issues come up, he addresses it right away. He nips it in the bud and doesn't let it linger. When you do that, it kind of eliminates the small groups and cliques talking about this and that. ...
"I loved playing for Donnie. I thought he was awesome. He was just really non-confrontational. He didn't enjoy, it seemed like, taking care of things right away. I think some things lingered too long and ended up turning into bigger things and issues.
"In his mind, he wanted the players to take care of it, and police ourselves, which is fine to an extent. We try to do that now. But bigger things don't happen when Dave takes the initiative. Myself, Adrian, Chase, Kershaw, whoever, we don't have to worry about ending it. We can just worry about playing, which makes it nice for us."
