Dodgers Team News

Dodgers News: Stan Kasten Does Not See 2022 as a Failure

It’s hard to look at a team like the Dodgers and not say World Series or bust. When you dominate the regular season the way they did — winning a franchise-record 111 wins and setting the fourth-best run differential in MLB history of +334 — you expect a lot from a team. At the very least, you expect them to get out of the first round of the playoffs.

But instead, the Dodgers were knocked out in four games in the NLDS, and into the record books went their historic 2022 season — and not in a good way.



However, Dodgers President and CEO Stan Kasten doesn’t look at this season as a failure. He told the LA Times why he thinks there are positives to take away from the 2022 season.

“We have succeeded in too many ways on too many fronts for me to think of this as any kind of failure,” Kasten said. “Just in the last eight years, five LCSs and three World Series, I don’t think those are bad numbers…We won one World Series, we lost another one in Game 7, I don’t think those are symbols of a fatally flawed program. I just don’t agree with that.”

It’s hard to blame Kasten for thinking this way. Overall, this has been a very successful team. But to have as much regular season dominance as this team has enjoyed, you do expect them to have more than the one World Series title to show for it. He did still acknowledge that there are areas this team needs to improve.

“I’m sure there are ways that we can get better,” Kasten said. “We can’t accept that there’s no way we can get better…You can look at everything that happened and you can look at everything we did…you hope the breaks even out over a period of time, but we always assume there are things we can do to get better.”

Hopefully those things involve playing better in the postseason, as the pressure will continue to be on Dave Roberts and his squad to win when it matters most. The good news is they’ll have a long offseason to figure out exactly what they need to fix come next posteason.

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Noah Camras

Noah is an Editor for Dodgers Nation. He graduated from USC in 2022 with a B.A. in Journalism and minor in Sports Media Studies. He's been a Dodger fan his whole life, and his all-time favorite Dodgers are Matt Kemp and Russell Martin.

16 Comments

  1. Stan when you lose to the Padres your team has failed! The players are over paid stiffs that could care less about winning a World Series!

  2. The problem is Dave Roberts. End of story. Simple. Nice guy, just a poor handler of pitchers. Joe Maddon, Mike Scioscia, Mike Matheny…there are options. But he is the weak link in this story.

  3. Stan, the season wasn’t a failure because your team didn’t win a WS. It was a failure because your team quit playing with a week to go in the regular season!

    1. That’s what it looked like. Perhaps it was a case of ‘we can sleep walk through the Padres.’ Perhaps it was the layoff and couldn’t engage the restart button. But then again that didn’t stop the Astros. One thing is certain, there was no fire.

  4. The problem is Dodger fans are entitled if not spoiled, as Stan is 1000% correct. Want something to complain about, try being a A’s, Rockie’s or Tiger’s fan, or really a great majority of baseball fans who would give their pitching arm to have a roster like this that is in every game and competitive every season.

    Sports and certainly baseball is beautiful and one of the wonderful things is that nothing is guaranteed and you have to go out there and earn it….its not anoited like many spoiled Dodger fans believe to be the case.

    Roberts didn’t lose anything, the players did. They didn’t hit anything like they did for most of the season. The bats all fell asleep at the same time, not just in the postseaon but really the last month of the season.

    Why did this happen, look not further than a team who didn’t feel the pressure, or hardly any adversity on their way to winning 111 games, until they got into the postseason and laid a big fat egg.

    Time to get back to Dodger baseball, bring up a few kids, watch them succeed and more importanly struggle, put them in positions where they will fail, lose games in the 9th inning, and then watch them grow and get better as a team organically, not have 3 or 4 star players carry the team for 162 games.

    1. I couldn’t disagree with you more. Nothing is guaranteed in sports, this is true. Whether its going for an undefeated season in like the Patriots tried to do only to come up one game short when losing to a team that was lucky to make it to the Super Bowl, or, a team as talented as the 2022 Dodgers were only to have the players give up playing before the playoffs began. Dave Roberts is a big reason why they lost, again, this year and failed to win the WS. Whether it was because of his poor game management and his inept usage of his pitching staff or if he wasn’t able to determine who he should play when those bats went cold. Sure, he wasn’t playing. He didn’t throw one pitch, fielded on ball in the field or took one swing of the bat. But his decisions as to who did had a big impact on the Dodgers failures these past several years. The managers impact on a teams success is just as important as the players themselves and can make the difference in whether a team wins or loses. Dave Roberts has shown that he really isn’t capable of taking a team all the way to the finish. He might be able to lead a team to 111 wins. But what could this team really have accomplished if he hadn’t made so may boned headed decisions?

      1. I’m pretty sure you just made my point.

        BTW, and we see this all the time….Managers can do everything right and the team still loses, just like they can do everything wrong and still win. In team sports its always easier to lay the blame at one persons feet, typically the manager than to point to the real problem, players not performing to their usual standards. If the team that won 111 games showed up, were talking about the Dodgers / Houston series which would have been awesome, win or lose.

        Its the guys on the field that have to go out and get the job done and we didn’t lose to SD because of poor pitching, the bats went cold, especially our lead-off hitter, but you don’t read anyone blaming him, right!

        As for the pitching in that last game, he brought in pitchers (on short rest, but thats what the postseason is all about) that were lights out during the regular season and in the first few games that screwed the pooch. To my point, stop baby these guys during the regular season and bring guys in back-to-back under high pressure situations and prepare them for whats to come.

        Bottom line…if our star players performed, we easily get by the Padres and were not talking about Roberts, but the truth is Philly looked to be a team of destiny this year in the NL, right up until getting beat, and it pains me to say this, Houston was the better team TY.

  5. The year was a failure. We did not accomplish our goals and were basically humiliated by the Padres. These dodgers always seem to find a way to collapse in the playoffs. Sure were great in a 60+ game season, but in 162 we simply dont win the World Series. I am tired with LA always being the World Series favorite each year only to choke in the playoffs. We need some new blood on this team. Going after Aaron Judge is not the answer. How did he do in the playoffs for NY this year.

  6. I said this a long time ago and will say it again. Kasten & co can say “they did this and they did that.” “Upgraded the stadium etc.” Why did they do this?? its not because they are good guys, they are in it for the $$$. So of course he doesn’t see it as a “failure,” he & co made their money for the year and they are happy with that.

    1. How many team owners can and actually do put serious money into drafting, player development, signing free agents, retaining their free agents, improving the roster year in and year out, customer interaction / stadium experience and on and on.

      Sorry JR, you have a short memory, only have to go back to the previous owner, so you’re looking at this thru a lens that won’t allow you to see the other side, or how much more money Kasten and Co. could put in their pockets if they really didn’t give a sh*t.

  7. Dave Roberts and his failure to play situational baseball, his failure to realize that Kershaw should have been the game 3 starter , his failure to leave Anderson in the game, his failure to play Bellinger who had been about the “ONLY” player that showed up in the playoff’s lately, his failure to see that Graterol was tipping pitches, his playing favorites like JT who was a rally killer every time and should have been on the bench. His failures “FAR” outweigh his accomplishments in big games. From Years of leaving Kershaw in the games to long, sending Kenley out to often, it’s just a bad movie.

    Stan has to realize there isn’t anything he can do as long as he has this bench player as a manager. Melvin schooled him with his matchups, and Melvins moves worked while Roberts couldn’t adjust like always.

    The Dodgers could have hired Dusty Baker, Melvin, now Bochy etc, and their problems could very well have been over. But no, they sit there and watch each season collapse because of their inept leader.

  8. But Davey has a track record…years of this crap! This was not a “one-off.” He is the problem…period.

  9. It’s all about $$$$$$$. Kasten and the others are most concerned with the money generated during the regular season by loyal paying Dodger fans. As long as we continue to pack the stadium for 82 games they are satisfied.

  10. 2022 was an abysmal failure. I don’t care if you win 162 games during the regular season. If you collapse in the postseason, YOU HAVE FAILED.

    1. And that collapse comes when October gets here and when performance matters the most at that time. Once again the season ends without having gotten the job done. It’s on everyone from top to bottom.

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