The Dodgers Dynasty Takes Its Place Among the many Greats

On the finish of maybe probably the most thrilling back-and-forth Sport 7 in World Sequence historical past, with one out within the backside of the eleventh inning and the tying run on third base, Alejandro Kirk hit a chopper to shortstop. Mookie Betts raced over to second base to power out Addison Barger, and whereas operating by the bag, fired an ideal strike into the outstretched glove of Freddie Freeman. The Dodgers’ second game-ending double play in as many nights didn’t simply clinch the 2025 World Sequence, it made them the primary crew to win back-to-back championships for the reason that 1999–2000 Yankees.

Courting again to their days in Brooklyn, the Dodgers have received 9 championships, however that is the primary time they’ve completed so in consecutive seasons. Twice earlier than, they’d returned to the World Sequence as reigning champions solely to lose, first to the Yankees in 1956 after which to the Orioles in ’66. Neither of these makes an attempt to repeat concerned surviving a number of playoff rounds earlier than that. This time, the 93-win Dodgers went 13-4 within the postseason, first sweeping the 83-win Reds within the Wild Card Sequence after which defeating three of the 4 groups that completed with extra wins: the 96-win Phillies (3-1 within the Division Sequence), 97-win Brewers (4-0 within the League Championship Sequence), and eventually the 94-win Blue Jays (who themselves dispatched the 94-win Yankees within the Division Sequence). Regardless of being outpitched, outhit, and outscored within the World Sequence, the Dodgers outlasted the AL champions, with two of their 4 wins coming in additional innings, the final of these by deploying three of their 4 collection starters in aid and by pulling off three of the 12 most impactful performs ever when it comes to Championship Win Likelihood Added, specifically Miguel Rojas’ game-tying house run within the high of the ninth (twelfth, +34.9% cWPA), Will Smith’s go-ahead solo shot within the high of the eleventh inning (fifth, 41% cWPA), and Betts’ double play (fourth, +46.2% cWPA).

As soon as upon a time, profitable back-to-back titles wasn’t unusual. From 1903 by 2000 — a span of 96 World Sequence (none in 1904 or ’94) — 10 groups received two in a row, two received three in a row, one received 4 in a row, and one received 5 in a row. That’s 14 groups who received at the least two World Sequence in a row (not double-counting any of them), and 21 occasions by which the World Sequence winner was the identical because the 12 months earlier than. Right here’s a breakdown, divided into (roughly) 20-year increments that happily don’t cut up up any back-to-back championships:

They don’t make ’em like that anymore, and it’s not onerous to grasp why. The demise of the reserve clause and rise of free company following the landmark Messersmith–McNally choice in 1975 meant that groups might not keep their core gamers indefinitely. Free company accelerated the flexibility of golf equipment to amass expertise with out having to rely solely on drafting or signing novice gamers or making flurries of trades. Sure, it usually took — and nonetheless takes — cash, but when cash had been the only determinant of profitable, the Yankees and Dodgers can be dominating the twenty first century, at the least to a larger diploma than they’ve completed.

Based on Cot’s Contracts, the Yankees had the majors’ highest year-end 40-man payroll 12 occasions in a row from 2002–13, however they received just one championship and one different pennant in that span even whereas making the playoffs 10 occasions. That very same information reveals the Dodgers main the majors seven occasions since 2014, the second 12 months after Guggenheim Baseball Administration bought the crew from Frank McCourt, who had pushed the Dodgers out of business. They’ve transformed that into three championships, however they’ve additionally had seasons the place their championship ambitions had been thwarted by lower-spending groups.

The disconnect between cash and championships — or between regular-season success and championships, the thrust of this text — owes a lot to the enlargement of the playoff subject, which started with the appearance of division play in 1969. The playoffs have turned the postseason right into a match the place even powerhouses can get knocked out in best-of-five or best-of-seven collection earlier than attending to play for the championship. It’s the most well liked crew that wins all of it, and upsets are a part of the enjoyable and/or heartbreak — a cornerstone of baseball historical past. As measured by the hole between the regular-season profitable percentages of the shedding crew and the profitable crew, three of the six largest postseason upsets concerned the Dodgers getting bounced in 2021 (by the Braves within the NLCS), ’22 (by the Padres within the NLDS), and ’23 (by the Diamondbacks within the NLDS). The irony is that at the least by won-loss information, these Dodgers groups had been higher within the common season than both of the 2 World Sequence winners that adopted; the truth is, the 2021 crew held a share of the franchise report for wins till the ’22 crew topped it, whereas this 12 months’s crew received fewer video games than any full-season Dodgers crew since 2018 (which nonetheless received a pennant).

The Dodgers have now reached the postseason in 13 consecutive seasons, through 12 NL West titles and one Wild Card berth. Underneath president of baseball operation Andrew Friedman and supervisor Dave Roberts, they’ve received 5 pennants previously 9 seasons, and three championships previously six. That’s the closest proximity by which the franchise has received 3 times, beating out their three-in-seven-years stretch from 1959–65 and their continent-spanning three-in-nine-years run from ’55–63.

Final 12 months, within the wake of their five-game victory over the Yankees, I famous that the Dodgers had separated themselves from what we would name the opposite playoff dynasties, golf equipment with sustained runs of excellence that culminated in solely a single World Sequence win, versus the extra conventional notion of a dynasty that comes with capturing consecutive championships, à la the 1972–74 A’s, ’75–76 Reds, ’98–2000 Yankees, and their ilk. The Orioles received six division titles and 4 pennants from 1969–79 underneath Earl Weaver, however solely received the World Sequence in ’70. Bobby Cox led the Braves to 14 consecutive postseason appearances from 1991–2005 — division titles in yearly besides the strike-shortened ’94 season, when there have been no playoffs — and 5 World Sequence appearances, but ’95 was the one 12 months by which Atlanta received all of it throughout that stretch. Since profitable 4 World Sequence in 5 years with Joe Torre managing from 1996–2000, the Yankees have added 4 pennants and 20 playoff appearances underneath Torre and successors Joe Girardi and present skipper Aaron Boone, however Girardi’s ’09 crew is the one one to win a championship.

With this 12 months’s win, the Dodgers have leveled up once more. For the reason that Yankees’ three-peat from 1998–2000, solely two different groups have received at the least three titles: the Crimson Sox (4, in 2004, ’07, ’13, and ’18) and Giants (three, in 2010, ’12, and ’14). Between these championships, each of these groups had seasons the place they not solely missed the playoffs, but additionally sank beneath .500.

After the Dodgers received in 2020, I took a swing at evaluating how their run — at the moment three pennants and one championship inside a four-year interval — stacked up within the context of different stretches of success by groups within the post-1960 enlargement period. In a course of that taxed the bounds of my Excel expertise and my post-World Sequence mind, I used Customary Deviation Scores (Z-scores) to measure how far above common every crew’s profitable proportion and per-game run differential had been throughout rolling five-year intervals. The methodology harkened again to the 2000 Rob Neyer and Eddie Epstein guide Baseball Dynasties: The Best Groups of All Time, although it didn’t fairly replicate what they did, as I couldn’t discover my copy inside my then-disorganized library. I’ve since discovered it, however I’ve caught with my methodology, revisiting it just a few occasions since.

For this train, I ran the numbers in just a few alternative ways. First, right here’s how the 2025 Dodgers rank primarily based on their three-year scores for profitable proportion and run differential (Neyer and Epstein used three years however did separate measures for run scoring and run prevention):

Dodgers groups of current classic dominate this listing, however the one three-year run that features two championships ranks behind 4 different iterations, considered one of which (2021–23) doesn’t embody both of their final two World Sequence winners. It’s not onerous to grasp why. This 12 months’s crew was a regular-season laggard by comparability. Not solely was its .574 profitable proportion decrease than any season since 2018, but additionally its run differential (0.88 runs per sport, +142 runs over the course of a full season) was its lowest since ’16; each dragged the crew’s three-year scores down a bit relative to its different current three-year runs.

After all, that has much less to do with the Dodgers being a weaker crew than one which couldn’t keep wholesome. Based on the Baseball Prospectus Injured Checklist Ledger, Dodgers gamers spent a serious league-high 2,528 days on the IL, with regulars Freeman, Smith, Tommy Edman, Teoscar Hernández, and Max Muncy all spending time there, together with each beginning pitcher of observe in addition to Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and several other key members of their bullpen, with Michael Kopech, Evan Phillips, Brock Stewart, and Kirby Yates all out of fee by October. But as Dan Szymborski famous final week, the model of the Dodgers enjoying within the World Sequence was simply concerning the strongest they might muster, one which ZiPS projected would win 104 video games over a full season, not 93.

Shifting past the Dodgers, the 1997–99 Yankees received two titles, however the ’88–90 A’s and ’69–71 Orioles every received only one whereas making the World Sequence in all three of these years. A number of three-year runs by the Braves are represented, however the ones that incorporate their championships from 1995 and 2021 rank beneath some that merely received pennants.

Turning to the five-year runs, it’s once more all Dodgers atop the listing, however the span incorporating this 12 months’s iteration isn’t on high:

For this model, I’ve included the variety of World Sequence every crew received and misplaced throughout that five-year span, as properly. Surprisingly, the Dodgers have the one two-time winners within the high 10, one span that includes their 2020 win — which might be thought to be skewing issues a bit given their .717 profitable proportion and a couple of.27 runs-per-game differential throughout a 60-game schedule — whereas the opposite contains this 12 months’s title. Both approach, they rank forward of powerhouses such because the Huge Crimson Machine; a span of Yankees success that included the strike 12 months and the top of Buck Showalter’s tenure, in addition to the primary two championships underneath Torre; the dominant A’s from the primary half of the Seventies; after which probably the most embellished iteration of Torre’s Yankees. All of this underscores simply how onerous it’s to keep up a long term of dominance within the common season whereas additionally kicking ass with some consistency within the postseason.

I ran one different model of the desk, for seven-year spans:

This one makes the most effective case for the present Dodgers, as a model that includes all three champions ranks third, not far behind two different current iterations that at the least received three pennants. Nonetheless, I do need to level out that seven years leaves a whole lot of time for roster turnover. The 2019 Dodgers, who received 106 video games — 9 greater than some other NL crew — had Muncy, Enrique Hernández, Smith as a midseason call-up, and Clayton Kershaw in his final season making at the least 25 begins, plus smaller contributions from the since-traded Dustin Might and the now-injured Tony Gonsolin. That’s not a whole lot of end-to-end continuity when in comparison with a few of these different high-ranking groups. The 2020 Dodgers added Betts and, uh, Blake Treinen, however key gamers who fueled that championship — akin to Cody Bellinger, Corey Seager, Justin Turner, and Julio Urías — had been passed by ’24, and Kershaw’s position in these final two championships was fairly minimal.

The seven-year downside isn’t simply confined to the Dodgers. The assorted iterations of the Nineteen Nineties Braves — who received only one championship regardless of the way you slice it — at the least started with Corridor of Famers Tom Glavine and John Smoltz anchoring their rotation, with Greg Maddux and Fred McGriff arriving in 1993, however Chipper Jones didn’t cement his lineup spot till 1995, and Andruw Jones burst on the scene late the following 12 months. The highest-ranked model of the Reds had Johnny Bench, Tony Perez, and Pete Rose, however Joe Morgan didn’t arrive till 1972. The “Core 4” Yankees — Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada, and Mariano Rivera — all debuted in 1995, although solely Pettitte was a serious contributor to that crew till the Yankees moved Rivera to the bullpen for good in September. The 1966–72 Orioles, who received two championships and 4 pennants, had been managed not by Weaver on the outset however by Hank Bauer; they swept the Dodgers that first 12 months with a crew that included so many mainstays who would gasoline that run, together with Corridor of Famers Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson (traded after 1971), and a rookie Jim Palmer, in addition to Paul Blair, Davey Johnson, and Boog Powell.

Whereas I might have run a six-year model that made an excellent higher case for the present Dodgers, I believe 5 years is sufficient to place them within the pantheon of nice groups. Condensing that earlier listing to incorporate solely groups that received two World Sequence, and fleshing out the rankings with different expansion-era spans that received a number of championships, brings us this:

Down close to the underside of this sortable desk, you’ll be able to see how the Giants’ on-off sample prices them tremendously on this comparability, and likewise the Blue Jays’ fast fade after profitable in 1992–93. (They had been stronger on the outset of the run that culminated with these championships.) A bit larger up you’ll be able to see numerous iterations of two-championship Crimson Sox groups from the 2004–11 span, the Yankees’ 1961–65 squad (the earliest doable utilizing the 1961 cutoff for this complete train), and so forth. And once more, take your decide between the 2 Dodgers runs; it’s affordable to desire the 2021–25 one for those who really feel the pandemic-shortened season is weighted too closely.

Whereas I might have tried to provide some final rating of expansion-era dynasties by weighing the championships and pennants with the Z-scores, that felt too subjective for this set of goal measures (which nonetheless did contain some subjective decisions). I believe this rating illustrates that it’s very powerful to keep up regular-season dominance over a stretch that features a number of championships, and that the Dodgers of current classic are at or close to the highest of the combo because of the way in which they’ve backed their consistency from April by September (give or take just a few days on both finish) with what they’ve completed in October. It’s fairly clear you could’t win ’em all, however this Dodgers dynasty can stand with the most effective of the enlargement period.