At Camelback Ranch, Dave Roberts Isn’t Dodging the Challenge: How the Dodgers Plan to Tackle the Championship Hangover
CAMELBACK RANCH, AZ - The sun might be shining and the grass freshly cut, but Dave Roberts isn’t letting the warmth of spring training blur the reality of what lies ahead. The Dodgers are back in camp as defending World Series champions, and while the excitement is real, so is the weight of what comes next.
Roberts didn’t sugarcoat it. When asked about the idea of a “World Series hangover,” he didn’t brush it off as media noise. He acknowledged it for what it is: a legitimate mental and physical hurdle that every championship team has to navigate.
“I think it’s real,” Roberts said. “And for me to try to say it’s not real is probably not giving enough credit to the human being, their minds.”
That’s not just coach-speak - that’s a manager who’s been through the grind. Roberts knows what a long October run does to a roster.
The offseason gets shorter. The legs get heavier.
The expectations? They don’t go anywhere.
If anything, they get louder.
But Roberts isn’t throwing up his hands. He’s leaning into the challenge, not with a grand motivational speech, but with a steady, season-long approach. For him, it’s about managing energy, timing the emotional highs and lows, and keeping the clubhouse engaged.
“I do think that there’s a way to kind of combat it,” he said. “You got to figure out how to keep guys involved, focused… It helps when you have depth with young, excitable players infused with new players that are veterans that haven’t won.”
That mix - hungry vets and eager youngsters - could be the key to keeping the Dodgers sharp. Roberts knows he can’t plan every moment in February.
Some of it is about feel. When to push.
When to ease off. When to spark the group.
That’s the art of managing, especially when the target is on your back.
“That’s… certainly something that I’m mindful of,” he said. “I don’t know what that looks like this year.”
When asked if he’d change anything from last season, Roberts didn’t play the hindsight game. He respects that every team has its own identity, its own rhythm. What worked last year might not apply now - and that’s okay.
“I wouldn’t change anything from last year,” he said. “This team’s going to be different than last year’s team… but it’s kind of read and react.”
That phrase - “read and react” - might as well be the Dodgers’ mantra this spring. The pressure’s still there.
The expectations haven’t dipped. But Roberts isn’t interested in dramatizing it.
This isn’t about proving something new. It’s about doing it again.
“We were here a year ago saying that we had a very talented roster coming off a championship,” he said. “The goal was to win a championship.
That was the goal. And so that’s still the same goal.”
He credited last year’s group for staying locked in despite being the hunted. And he used a fitting metaphor to explain how they kept their focus.
“I thought we did a very good job of keeping our eyes looking forward at our goal versus looking to the side and looking at who’s around us, who’s chasing us.”
That kind of tunnel vision doesn’t come easy. And Roberts knows it. He acknowledged the challenge of staying centered when every team in the league is circling your name on the schedule.
“Knowing you have a target - as we should if you’re the defending champions - but to still focus on yourselves and what’s forward. That’s what we do a good job of… It’s easy to say, ‘Don’t concern yourselves with people trying to knock you off the hill,’ but it’s harder to do in practice.”
So how do they do it? Roberts gave credit where it’s due - to the players. The message might start with him, but it’s the guys in the dugout who have to live it every day.
“I could say that that’s my messaging all the time every day,” he said, “but it’s probably better to hear from them. I do think that we do a good job of each day just trying to focus on that day, win a baseball game. We talk about that a lot.”
And then came the reminder - the kind of grounded, competitive note that always seems to surface when Roberts speaks.
“That’s well and good,” he said of the talk from other teams about taking down the champs, “but you still got to play.”
That’s the tone Roberts is setting early. The Dodgers know what’s coming.
The noise, the pressure, the expectations - none of it’s new. What matters is how they respond.
And if Roberts’ steady hand is any indication, they’re ready to get back to work.