To kick off the 2025 Major League Baseball regular season, the Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Dodgers will play two games at the Tokyo Dome in Bunkyo, Japan, from March 18 to 19.
Before the National League teams take the field, World Baseball Network looks at the managers for each organization at the 2025 MLB Tokyo Series.
Chicago Cubs – Craig Counsell
Counsell enters his second season as manager of the Cubs. He signed a five-year, $40 million contract in November 2023, making him the highest-paid skipper in MLB history.
In Counsell’s first season at the helm, the Cubs finished the regular season in third place in the NL Central at 83-79. Chicago has not won a postseason game since 2017.
Counsell managed the Milwaukee Brewers from 2015 to 2023 and is the club’s all-time leader with 707 managerial wins. From 1995 to 2011, the second baseman and two-time World Series champion enjoyed a 16-year MLB career with the Brewers, Arizona Diamondbacks, Florida Marlins, Colorado Rockies, and Los Angeles Dodgers.
“We got a great experience on tap for us,” Counsell said about making the trip to Japan on Tuesday’s Marquee Sports Network broadcast. “I think, first of all, as a team bonding experience, it’s a way to start our journey together as a team. From a baseball perspective, we get to play against two Japanese Major League teams and challenge ourselves against the world champions the first two games.”
Los Angeles Dodgers – Dave Roberts
Roberts, now a two-time World Series champion as Dodgers manager, was born in Naha, Japan 1972. He’s been at the helm since the beginning of the 2016 season. Before transitioning to Los Angeles, Roberts served as the San Diego Padres’ first base coach from 2011 to 2013 and the bench coach from 2014 to 2015.
Roberts played 10 MLB seasons from 1999 to 2008 with the Cleveland Guardians, Los Angeles Dodgers, Boston Red Sox, San Diego Padres, and San Francisco Giants. He won his first and only World Series as a player in 2004 with the Red Sox. In his first nine seasons as Dodgers manager, Roberts led the team to an 851-507 record, including a franchise-record 111 wins in 2022.
“I think for me, I just saw sincere, genuine joy for us going there (Japan),” Roberts told Spectrum SportsNet at December’s MLB winter meetings. “I know that baseball is trying to expand globally, and we saw the way we were received last year by the people of South Korea, and it's gonna be the same, if not more, certainly with Shohei and Yamamoto going to their home country of Japan.”
AP Photos
