Cubs manager Craig Counsell trumped by Dave Roberts' new deal with the Dodgers

The Chicago Cubs shocked the baseball world when they signed Craig Counsell to a five-year, $40 million deal in Nov. 2023. Widely regarded as one of the game's best managers, Counsell led a perenially overperforming Milwaukee Brewers team for years before coming to the North Side - but his resume lacked the headliners one might expect for the game's highest-paid manager.

No World Series titles as a manager. No National League pennants. A 7-12 career postseason record. None of that cooled the Cubs on Counsell - but it should come as no surprise to anyone to see the Los Angeles Dodgers make Dave Roberts the game's new highest-paid manager after leading the team to two titles in the last five years and four NL pennants since 2017.

Roberts and Los Angeles reportedly agreed on a four-year, $32.4 million extension ($8.1M AAV) that narrowly edges the $8.0M AAV Counsell received in his five-year contract with the Cubs.

To say the first year of Counsell's tenure on the North Side disappointed is putting it mildly after the Cubs matched the record they had under David Ross in 2023 (83-79) and missed the postseason again. But as the season wound down, he made it perfectly clear that expectations had to change in Chicago and that 90+ win records - and building 90+ win rosters - had to be the standard moving forward.

This year, he'll look to lead the Cubs to their first division title and postseason appearance since 2020 and, hopefully, win a postseason game for the first time since the 2017 NLCS. Armed with Kyle Tucker, at least for one season, and a reloaded bullpen mix, Counsell faces an October-or-bust 2025 season and could very well hold the fate of Jed Hoyer and Carter Hawkins in his hands.

Meanwhile, the Dodgers are already being billed as baseball's best team ever after they followed up winning the Fall Classic with a high-dollar spending spree of an offseason that saw them add Blake Snell, Roki Sasaki, Tanner Scott, Kirby Yates and more. Roberts is tasked with balancing egos on a daily basis and has risen to the occasion, mastering the high-pressure expectations in Los Angeles after looking to be on shaky ground at one point in the not-so-distant past.

Counsell may not be the highest-paid manager in the game any longer, but the expectations that come with his salary, if anything, have only increased. Leading the Cubs back to the postseason would be a big first step in living up to those expectations in his second year at the helm.