Dave Roberts’ Blunder Highlights Why Bettors Should Consider Managers When Wagering

In sports, front offices strive to remove the unpredictable through analytics data. Still, for bettors, coaches and managers and the human element they bring plays an integral role in wins and losses.

Mistakes are magnified. Outright blunders even more so. Take the one committed by Los Angeles Dodgers Manager Dave Roberts in his team's 9-4 loss to the New York Mets on Saturday.

Dimers.com contributor Paul Lebowitz reminds us to consider elements of human error that prey on managers and coaches from time to time.

A “What the hell are you doing?” blunder is not knowing the rules to compound an already inexplicable decision.

It highlights the problem with managers whose role is to follow orders. The more egregious and inexplicable it is, the harder it is to swallow.

This is especially true when it costs bettors money.

Umpires barred Dodgers manager Dave Roberts from using a position player to pitch the ninth inning, enforcing a rule Roberts apparently did not know that prevents teams from using non-pitchers with a deficit of five runs or fewer.

by @joereedy https://t.co/REmC5qXekK

— AP Sports (@AP_Sports) June 5, 2022

On Saturday in Los Angeles, with the Dodgers trailing the New York Mets 9-4 in the top of the ninth inning, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts attempted to insert a position player, Zach McKinstry, to pitch.

The umpires refused to allow it because Major League Baseball has a rule where position players (and not two-way players like Shohei Ohtani) can only pitch in a game where the difference is greater than five runs.

This type of maneuver in a game where it is unexpected and unnecessary not only impacts the game itself, but can stun people who had placed money on a facet of the game.

In a true blowout where one team is up or down by 10-plus runs, bettors can account for the likelihood that a manager will insert a position player to pitch. Betting sites might suspend new bets to counteract it.

In a game where the club is within improbable but possible striking distance, few are expecting to see a position player pitching. When betting on run totals, this is a significant concern as position players tend to surrender crooked numbers to skew the odds.

Roberts presides over a team that wins 100 games per year, but his role is that of the middle-manager who does what he’s told. 

Roberts isn't alone. In a game on May 27, the San Francisco Giants mistakenly left reliever Jake McGee off the official lineup card, making McGee ineligible to pitch when manager Gabe Kapler attempted to put him in the game is just that.

There has been something of a shift in managing in today’s MLB with the Mets’ Buck Showalter, the Astros’ Dusty Baker, the White Sox’ Tony LaRussa and the Padres’ Bob Melvin where the manager is more than a figurehead, and does have sway.

Would teams that predominantly rely on analytics in their game plans and use a “collaborative” strategy from top to bottom – including how the manager responds to specific situations – ever let their manager go with a ‘hunch’ as Detroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland did in the 2011 ALDS when he started utility man Don Kelly in Game 5 and Kelly hit a home run? 

There was little statistical justification for doing so as ancillary considerations like swing path, hard-hit percentage and arcane methods of analysis were not widespread, particularly for an old-school team like the Leyland/Dave Dombrowski Tigers.

The matchup history between Kelly and New York Yankees starter Ivan Nova was almost nonexistent apart from one plate appearance on May 13, 2010 when Kelly lined out in a 6-0 Tigers win.

Yet Leyland had the freedom to make such a move without it potentially costing him his job if he deviated from the pregame … and it worked.

In December 1995, Dallas Cowboys head coach Barry Switzer was labeled by the New York Post as “Bozo the Coach” after he went for a first down on fourth and inches in a tie game against the Philadelphia Eagles.

The Eagles stopped Emmitt Smith on the first attempt, but a penalty nullified the play. Then the Cowboys called the exact same play and were stopped again. The Eagles kicked a field goal and won.

In a similar situation 14 years later, New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick also went for a first down deep in his own territory against the Indianapolis Colts and Peyton Manning. The Patriots were stopped and the Colts won.

Because it was Belichick, he gets the wiggle room that Switzer didn’t.

It can be difficult for bettors to quantify what a manager/coach will do in a game. The freedom they are accorded from the front office, their status and history should be considered. 

It’s an unavoidable ambiguity that is hard to gauge, but should be weighed when putting money down.