Outside The Confines: Dave Roberts speaks out against racism towards Asian-Americans

This week, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts released an internal email to the organization to speak out against the rising cases of racism and violence towards Asian Americans. Roberts, whose father is Black and mother is Japanese, felt it was necessary to speak out.

While racism towards the Asian American community is not new, it has seen a stark rise in the wake of the pandemic. Los Angeles has an incredibly dense Asian population “with 11.3% of the population identifying as Asian, according to the 2010 census” (according to Joon Lee’s ESPN article on Roberts’ statement).

In Roberts’s statement, which he drafted alongside Dodgers traveling secretary Scott Akasaki, Roberts expressed why he felt it was important to speak out now.

“It hit obviously close to home for me, and I just felt that I wanted to address it internally and show my support for the Asian Americans in our organization first off. We’re all aware of it. It’s just something that was in my heart that I felt needed to be shared.”

Our first links of the day dive deeper into the Roberts story.

• Dennis Lin and Pedro Moura were the first to bring the letter to the public, and shared his sentiments about it. (The Athletic subscription required.)
• Joon Lee wrote about the letter and its intended impact for ESPN.
• Jenna West at Sports Illustrated shared more information on the trend of aggression towards Asian Americans as she discussed Roberts’s letter.
• Michael Baumann spotlights the players who have the most to prove over the 2021 season.
• Ian Browne looks at D’Angelo Ortiz’s hopes to follow in his father’s famous footsteps.
• It has been 6,000 (well, 6,001 now) days since the Twins last won a postseason game. Aaron Gleeman looks at the long, heartbreaking drought for Minnesota fans. (The Athletic subscription required.)
• The people manager in me is absolutely obsessed with Brendan Gawlowski’s approach to WAR as performance review assessment and how it should apply to free-agent signings.
• Teams are starting to make plans for having fans in the seats, and Alden Gonzalez and Jesse Rogers have the current list of which teams have fan plans and what the specifics are.
• Weird injury alert. Is this better or worse than a Tigers prospect cutting his finger using a makeshift can opener?

• David Price, who opted out of the 2020 season and finds himself in a busy Dodgers lineup, is ready for “whatever”, according to Jay Jaffe.
• Ken Rosenthal talked to three umpires who opted out of participating in the 2020 season. (The Athletic subscription required.)
• Everyone is talking about Shohei Ohtani! The two-way superstar was the focus of a Ben Lindbergh piece following some exciting spring training showings.
• The FanGraphs staff are among those enthusiastically following Ohtani’s hot spring, as Jay Jaffe looks at his potential comeback season.
• RJ McDaniel looks at time as a flat circle in terms of what Ohtani has achieved, and what he will achieve again.
• Rob Mains dives into the “times through the order” concept and what it actually means for players. (Baseball Prospectus Premium required)
• David Schoenfield assesses which teams are most likely to make a return trip to the postseason this year.
• Will Laws looks at which managers are in the hot seat this season.
• The Phillies are mentioned in the previous post, and Joe Posnanski shares the hard uphill slog ahead for Bryce Harper and the rest of the team. (The Athletic subscription required.)
• What witchcraft is this?

And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster. Make it so.