Dave Roberts Clarifies His “Ruining Baseball” Comment Ahead of 2025 World Series

Dave Roberts and the Los Angeles Dodgers are looking to go back-to-back as World Series champions and defend their title.

Dave Roberts Clarifies His “Ruining Baseball” Comment Ahead of 2025 World Series

Dave Roberts (Image via Imago)

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Dave Roberts and the Los Angeles Dodgers will be playing in the World Series again this year. Ahead of the matchup against the Toronto Blue Jays, Roberts clarified his “ruining baseball” comment after their National League Championship Series (NLCS) win against the Milwaukee Brewers.

The Dodgers have been severely criticized in recent years due to their spending. Their payroll of $350 million for the 2025 season, is the highest in MLB this year.

As they continue to dominate, several fans have claimed that they have an unfair advantage against them due to their spendings. In the NLCS, they went up against the Brewers, who were ranked 17th in the payroll among the 30 teams as per Spotrac.

The Brewers, not only did sweep the Dodgers in the regular season, but also finished with the best record in the league at 97-65. The Dodgers did win their division as well but with the Brewers and the Philadelphia Phillies having a better record against them, they finished as the No.3 seed team and had to go through a Wild Card Series.

In the NLCS, the Dodgers completely flipped the script on the Brewers. Following strong pitching performances from Blake Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Tyler Glasnow in Games 1, 2, and 3, respectively, Shohei Ohtani stole the show in Game 4. He slugged 3 home runs and picked up 10 strikeouts in Game 4 as the Dodgers completed a 4-0 sweep.

During their pennant victory celebration, Roberts would take a swipe at the critics of the Dodgers. He would savagely hit back at them with a “ruining baseball” comment.

Before this season started, they said the Dodgers are ruining baseball. Let’s get four more wins and really ruin baseball!

Dave Roberts said after their NLCS win

This words from Roberts was met up mixed reactions online. While some backed him for defending his team, some were not impressed.

Before the Fall Classic against the Blue Jays, he would speak with Colin Cowherd. The analyst would bring up this comment and express that he enjoyed this. Roberts would then clarify that he just wanted to flip the script and troll some fans back.

Everyone trolls me and so I figured, you know what I am gonna flip it on it’s head and troll some people that are trying to create this crazy narrative that the Dodgers are ruining baseball.

Dave Roberts said

Dave Roberts turns down “villain” narrative regarding his comments

Dave Roberts’ “ruining baseball” comment did cause some stir. In a press conference before the World Series against the Toronto Blue Jays, the 53-year-old turned down the “villain” narrative and spoke about his comments.

Dave Roberts
Dave Roberts (Image via MLB)

While speaking to the media, he claimed that he was just poking fun at some people who have been highly vocal of the Dodgers spending.

I don’t feel like I’m the villain. I was just poking fun at some people that said the Dodgers were ruining baseball. Clearly, I don’t believe that.

Dave Roberts told the reporters

After winning the World Series last year, the Dodgers would flex their financial powers once again. They would bring in Blake Snell on a 5-year $182 million deal, beat out several teams for the signature of Roki Sasaki, and then strengthen their bullpen by signing Kirby Yates and Tanner Scott.

Apart from this, they would extend the contract of Tommy Edman, Blake Treinen, and bring back Clayton Kershaw and Teoscar Hernandez from free agency. Along with Shohei Ohtani’s contract, the team has over $1 billion in deferred amounts to players.

This is one of the reasons why there have been several criticisms thrown at the Dodgers. However, Roberts has time and again continued to defend the team and expressed that their owners put the majority of the money back into the team.

He and his team are now looking to do something that has not been done since the year 2000. They are looking to become the first team after the New York Yankees to go back-to-back as World Series champions.

The Yankees were the last team to do so, having won three straight from 1998 to 2000. Game 1 of the 2025 World Series will be played on Friday at Rogers Centre in Toronto.

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