The Los Angeles Dodgers won’t sniff the all-time wins record in 2025. In fact, it wasn’t long ago that they hit their lowest point of the season, stumbling through ugly losses to the Pittsburgh Pirates and Baltimore Orioles.
And yet, despite their sixth-best record in baseball at 82-64, the Dodgers remain firmly planted in conversations about October glory. Bleacher Report recently pointed out that no team has truly supplanted Los Angeles as the de facto World Series favorite. That’s not just perception; the numbers reinforce it.
Baseball Reference currently tabs the Milwaukee Brewers with a 24.7% chance to win it all. FanGraphs lists the Dodgers at 17.3%, ahead of Philadelphia, which Baseball Prospectus gives a 14.4% shot. Taken together, the picture is clear: while the Dodgers have flaws, no one has wrestled away their place as the team to beat.
Pitching Finally Back in Place
Back in January, Baseball America’s J.J. Cooper dubbed the Dodgers’ rotation “MLB’s Deepest Pitching Staff Ever” after the club added Blake Snell and Japanese phenom Roki Sasaki. For months, that claim looked laughable. Injuries piled up, and the Dodgers’ ERA ballooned into the bottom 10 of the league by the end of July.
But since August 1, the script has flipped. Dodgers starters lead MLB with a 3.14 ERA, supported by a 3.88 mark from the bullpen. The full rotation—Snell, Tyler Glasnow, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Clayton Kershaw, and Shohei Ohtani—is finally healthy and lined up as designed.
Relievers remain a question mark, though Dave Roberts has managed to extract consistency from Blake Treinen, Alex Vesia, Jack Dreyer, and others. Sasaki could soon add a boost of his own after hitting 98.6 mph during a rehab outing in Oklahoma City.
That matters because the Dodgers won the 2024 World Series despite lacking a true No. 1 starter. This October, they might enter with multiple frontline arms.
Offense Still Elite
While July was a disaster—ranking 26th in wRC+ and scoring just 91 runs—Los Angeles has otherwise been one of the most dangerous lineups in baseball. They lead the National League in home runs (215) and score 5.05 runs per game, tied with Milwaukee.
Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, and Mookie Betts are again functioning as a legitimate big three. Since August, the trio has combined for a 160 wRC+ with Freeman and Betts both heating up at the right time. Ohtani sits on 48 home runs, still pacing toward another 50-homer season.
The supporting cast has also returned to full strength. Max Muncy and Tommy Edman are back from injuries, and trade-deadline additions have given Roberts more lineup flexibility.
Why the Dodgers Still Have the Edge
Parity defines MLB this year. Even the Brewers, baseball’s best team by record, project to max out at 98 wins. Most wild-card teams are likely to enter with fewer than 90. Compared to recent seasons of super-teams, the field feels wide open.
That’s where the Dodgers’ mix of elite offense, resurgent rotation, and playoff-tested manager becomes decisive. Their rivals each carry glaring flaws—Milwaukee’s lack of power, Philadelphia’s pitching health, New York’s inconsistency—that make the Dodgers look steadier by comparison.
Yes, the bullpen could still implode. But Roberts has a history of deploying starters in relief when it matters most. With October looming, Los Angeles has the talent and track record to justify Bleacher Report’s assessment: even in a “down” season, the Dodgers remain the favorites.