‘Inevitable’ Dodgers Have Become Overwhelming World Series Favorites

The Los Angeles Dodgers entered the 2025 season viewed as the overwhelming favorites to win the World Series. A defending champion that kept adding in the offseason, picking up another ace in Blake Snell, a new Japanese phenom in Roki Sasaki, and that was just the tip of the iceberg.

The baseball world was collectively outraged by the talent the Dodgers had accumulated, and many deemed the 2025 season over before it even started. Then the games began, and the Dodgers looked far more beatable than their roster would suggest on paper.

The Dodgers, who have averaged over 104 wins per season in the last five full seasons dating back to 2019, failed to reach even 95 wins for the first time since 2018. At 93-69, the Dodgers still won the NL West, but had to compete in the Wild Card round for the first time under this new playoff format.

When we ranked the top playoff teams heading into October, we had the Dodgers third, as their bullpen looked shaky and their lineup inconsistent.

Now here we are, a few short weeks later, and the Dodgers have made a mockery of the National League, running away with yet another NL pennant.

Last night, Shohei Ohtani had a game for the ages, blasting three home runs, to go along with six shutout innings and 10 strikeouts. In doing so, he put everyone on notice. The Dodgers are at the beginning of the “Ohtani Dynasty”, one that could rival anything we have seen in a very long time.

Destroying the “Best Teams in Baseball”

By record, the best two teams in Major League Baseball throughout the 2025 season were the Philadelphia Phillies and the Milwaukee Brewers. The only two teams to eclipse 95 wins this season, the Phillies and Brewers, each enjoyed first-round byes, grabbing the top two slots over the Dodgers.

For the Phillies, that meant a date with the Dodgers in the NLDS. As the top seed, the Brewers got to avoid that fate until the NLCS.

NLDS vs. the Phillies

The Phillies were 55-26 at home during the regular season, but when push came to shove, the Dodgers took both games in Philly, starting their postseason 4-0 after having quickly dismantled the Reds in the Wild Card round.

To the Phillies credit, their losses were hard-fought, as a 7th-inning three-run homer by Teoscar Hernandez doomed them in Game 1, losing 5-3. Then they battled back from down 4-0 to score three runs in the final two innings of Game 2, only to come up one short, losing 4-3.

In Game 3, the Phillies went off, scoring eight runs on 12 hits to hand the Dodgers what still remains as their lone loss this postseason. Game 4 was another battle, with the Phillies pushing the Dodgers to an 11th inning, before losing in gut-wrenching fashion off the first walk-off error in MLB postseason history.

Through the first two rounds, the Dodgers went 5-1, but we were hardly crowning them World Series champions before seeing what they could do against the “best team in baseball”, the Milwaukee Brewers. A team that went 6-0 against the Dodgers during the regular season.

NLCS vs. the Brewers

Game 1, in Milwaukee, the Dodgers sent out their prized offseason acquisition, Blake Snell. The left-hander went eight scoreless, as he faced the minimum, allowing just one hit while striking out 10. The Dodgers only scratched two runs, but they were enough as the Brewers scored one against the bullpen in the 9th and lost 2-1.

In Game 2, it was Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s turn, as the $325 million signing from 2024 once again showcased his ability to rise to the moment in October.

Unlike Snell, Yamamoto allowed a run, but that is all he gave up, and he also went the distance, pitching a complete game to lead the Dodgers to a 5-1 win and a commanding lead in the series.

Surely the task would get easier for the Brewers once they got to the Dodgers’ Game 3 starter. Unless, of course, that Game 3 starter is 6-foot-8 Tyler Glasnow, who is one of the best pitchers in baseball when he’s healthy.

Glasnow mowed down eight Brewers on strikes across 5 2/3 innings pitched, giving up just one run on three hits and three walks. The Dodgers bullpen pieced it together from there, and the Brewers fell by a score of 3-1.

Finally we get to last night, where Ohtani was waiting for the Brewers and ready to make history.

He did so by posting one of the greatest individual performances this game has ever seen, stealing the NLCS MVP at the 11th hour (after largely having a poor series prior).

Across the four-game sweep, the Brewers only managed 14 hits. The Dodgers scored 15 runs.

The Dodgers rotation covered 28 2/3 of the 36 innings across the NLCS. They allowed just two runs, good for a 0.63 ERA. They struck out 35 batters and allowed only nine hits.

Now with the quartet of Snell, Yamamoto, Glasnow and Ohtani, the Dodgers are looking nearly unbeatable with only one team left standing in their way of back-to-back titles.

Dodgers Are Perpetual Favorites in the Midst of a Dynasty

The Dodgers entered the postseason with +500 odds to win the World Series. If you look at their updated odds now, BetMGM has them as a -210 favorite to win it all.

Part of being the favorite right now is that they are already in the World Series, while the Mariners still need to win one more game, and the Blue Jays need to win two.

Still, I would imagine the odds will not move much for the Dodgers, who are looking like the team everyone feared they would be heading into the season.

The 2000 New York Yankees were the last team to win back-to-back World Series titles, part of a run where they won four World Series in five years, and won three in a row from 1998-2000.

An era of Yankees baseball defined by iconic Hall of Famers like Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera, the Yankees went to the World Series seven times from 1996 through 2009. They won five rings.

If you look at what the Dodgers have managed over the past decade, it is fair to say we have already witnessed another dynasty. Since 2017, they have won five pennants in nine years. If they win the World Series this year, they will have taken home their third title in the past decade.

While those results certainly are dynasty-worthy, this era of Dodgers baseball feels different from the one that preceded it.

The Dodgers went to and lost back-to-back World Series titles in 2017 and 2018, before finally getting the job done during the COVID-shortened 2020 season. Until last year, the Dodgers were more known for having outstanding regular seasons and then coming up short in October.

In 2024, the Dodgers were not seen as an overwhelming favorite entering October, as they had a shaky rotation that had been gutted by injuries. They found a winning combination in October and won it all.

Now here they are, looking primed and ready to waltz their way to another title. If they win it, Shohei Ohtani will have won two rings in as many chances with the Dodgers.

Ohtani is not just the face of Dodgers’ baseball, he is the face of the game of baseball. Mookie Betts said it best after the game last night.

What we are watching now is different from the Dodgers teams of the past.

In real time, we are getting to watch the greatest player who ever lived, on a team full of future Hall of Famers, All-Stars, and rising stars, all the same.

Each year, the Dodgers will enter the season as the favorite, always standing on the mountaintop with everyone else trying to knock them off. Could the Mariners or the Blue Jays do the unthinkable and upset the Dodgers by playing a perfect World Series? Sure.

Baseball can be random, and momentum can found be found and ridden to victory in any series, regardless of the talent discrepancy. Just ask the 2003 Florida Marlins who beat the mighty New York Yankees.

At the end of the day, though, this Dodgers team feels different. It feels like a team that can’t be beat. A World Series champion that, after all is said and done, truly was inevitable.