Contrary to what many thought in spring training, the Los Angeles Dodgers aren’t going to come close to the all-time win record. Heck, it was only last week that they hit bottom with devastating losses to the Pittsburgh Pirates and Baltimore Orioles.
So, why does it feel like the Dodgers are still the favorites to win the whole dang thing all over again?
Perhaps it doesn’t seem that way from where you’re sitting, but it doesn’t hurt the Dodgers’ cause that nobody has supplanted them as the de facto World Series favorite for 2025. They may only have the sixth-best record in MLB at 82-64—albeit with a 2.5-game lead in the NL West—but they still have a seat at the table, as it were.
Here’s a sampling of odds from around the odds-making world:
One of those is fake, but the implication is real: The shine with which the defending World Series champs entered 2025 has yet to fade completely.
If anything, it’s starting to glow again.
The Dodgers’ Pitching Is Finally Coming Online
One’s mind still goes back to a January article in Baseball America in which J.J. Cooper lauded the Dodgers for assembling “MLB’s Deepest Pitching Staff Ever” following offseason additions of Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki.
As hot takes usually do, this one initially aged terribly. Injuries quickly (and predictably) eroded the Dodgers’ mound depth, and simple ineffectiveness did the rest in forcing their team ERA into the bottom 10 of the league by the end of July. They seemed, in every sense of the word, [expletive deleted].
Well, here’s the deal since August 1:
Dodgers Starters: 3.14 ERA, 1st in MLB
Dodgers Relievers: 3.88 ERA, 13th in MLB
Overall: 3.40 ERA, 1st in MLB
That the Dodgers’ rotation is on one right now would be surprising if the explanation wasn’t obvious. For the first time all year, it has Snell, Tyler Glasnow, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Clayton Kershaw and Shohei Ohtani in their rightful places.
The pen isn’t as settled just yet, in part because the Dodgers are still waiting on Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates to get with the program. Yet Blake Treinen hasn’t been scored upon in 12 of his last 14 outings, while Alex Vesia, Jack Dreyer, Anthony Banda, Ben Casparius and Edgardo Henriquez have thrived in specialist roles.
Meanwhile, Sasaki is on his way to lend a hand.
The 23-year-old has been out since May with a shoulder injury, yet he’s done enough on a rehab assignment with Triple-A Oklahoma City to warrant a look as a relief option. Most recently, he enjoyed a dominant outing on Tuesday in which he averaged 98.6 mph on his fastball.
Just as a reminder, the Dodgers won the World Series last year even though they barely had a functional pitching staff by the time October arrived. Most notably, they lacked a No. 1 starter to counter the Dylan Ceases and Gerrit Coles they faced.
The Dodgers’ Offense (and Manager) Has Never Gone Anywhere
For all the trouble the Dodgers have had on the mound throughout the year, there was only one month in which they were also lacking on the other side of the ball.
That was in July, when they ranked 26th in the league with a 90 wRC+ and 28th with 91 runs scored. It was a truly abysmal offensive effort that cost them to the tune of a 10-14 record.
And yet, there the Dodgers are atop the National League with 215 home runs, with only the Brewers matching their scoring output of 5.05 runs per game. It’s an elite offense, full-stop.
As he was last year, Ohtani has been the center of gravity in the lineup. His OPS is only down 35 points from 2024, and his 48 home runs put him well within reach of a second straight 50-homer season.
The difference now, though, is that Ohtani is once again part of a proper big three with Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman:
Ohtani, Betts, Freeman through July: 130 wRC+, 4.5 HR%
Ohtani, Betts, Freeman since August: 160 wRC+, 5.5 HR%
Freeman has escalated from steadily warm to actually hot since the start of August, notably with nine of his 20 homers. Betts, meanwhile, has shaken off the chilly spell that had everyone perplexed early on. In September alone, he’s homered four times and driven in 15 runs.
Save for free-agent signee Michael Conforto and a few role players added at the trade deadline, the offense is still largely the same as the one that rolled through October last year. And that was again despite a squeaky wheel, as Ohtani was largely silent and ended up severely limited by a shoulder injury in the World Series.
Lest he be overlooked, there is also still the same manager who has been in the chair for 10 playoff appearances, four pennants, and two championships since the Dodgers hired him back in 2016.
Indeed, there’s an argument that this season marks the finest work Dave Roberts has done yet in his decade with the Dodgers. He didn’t ask for all the injuries and unexpectedly poor performances, yet at no point did he let anything spiral out of control.
And now, the lineup is another area where he figures to have more toys to play with in October. After both missed about a month, the Dodgers have gotten Max Muncy and Tommy Edman back from injuries in the last few days.
What Dodgers Have That the Competition Doesn’t
Elsewhere around MLB, this is the second straight year that there hasn’t been at least one super-team sucking up all the oxygen before the postseason.
Whereas there were multiple 100-win teams in 2023, 2022, 2021, 2019, 2018 and 2017, even the league-best Brewers are projected to max out at 98 wins, the same total the Dodgers led with last season. And in both the AL and the NL, the wild-card ranks are projected to be rounded out by teams in the 84-87-win range.
With this much parity, the pursuit of the Commissioner’s Trophy figures to come down to what contenders have and what they don’t have right now. And for the Dodgers’ primary competitors in the NL, the don’t-haves are clear:
It’s not hard to repeat this experiment with the projected AL playoff field, like so:
Dodgers skeptics can rightfully point to their bullpen as a potentially fatal flaw, and with good reason. It has blown too many saves throughout the year, including seven since the start of August.
But with the way it’s been pitching in this timeframe, the Dodgers’ pen isn’t so much weak as not quite elite. Roberts has proven he will gladly use one of his top starters in relief in the playoffs if a situation calls for it. Among those who know are Kershaw, Max Scherzer, Rich Hill, Tony Gonsolin and, of course, Walker Buehler.
As of now, it is perfectly fair to mark the Dodgers’ 2025 season down as a disappointment. To go from being teased for 117 wins to needing to break even in their final 16 games just to reach 90 wins is not what anyone had in mind.
However, the Dodgers themselves never said that 117 wins were on their minds. What they’re after is a dynasty, and that discussion will be unavoidable if they realize their very real championship aspirations.
