The 121st World Series just concluded. For their second year in a row, the LA Dodgers won the World Series. How did they do it two years in a row? Was it luck? Or was it history in the making? Let’s discuss the Dodgers’ season from the off-season to the World Series and how they achieved their success. Then, at the end, I’ll give my final opinion of their season in overview.
2025 Offseason: The Dodgers had a good offseason, like always. Was it as great as last year’s? That certainly depends. During the ‘24 off-season, the Dodgers focused mostly on offensive production. They wanted to spend a lot of money to get significant additions to their team. They wanted to make a statement to the rest of the teams in the MLB. The team would create their overall net worth of 1 billion dollars just in team salary for their season. They went out and acquired Shohei Ohtani, who is one of the greatest players in the current MLB. During this past offseason, the Dodgers wanted to focus on adding depth to their already impressive starting rotation and bullpen. They wanted to focus on adding the premium pitching talent to complement their offense. To create a more dominant season for them. By adding a previous CY Young winner in Blake Snell and the Japanese star pitcher Roki Sasaki. Not to mention, re-signing closer Tanner Scott was a strategy that would add the rotation they needed for their closing pitchers. The Dodgers also re-signed veteran pitcher Clayton Kershaw and exercised club options on Miguel Rojas and Austin Barnes.
2025 Season: The Dodgers were still the Dodgers, but they were seen as an entirely different team. They were electric, but not nearly as electric as last year. On the MLB app last year, the Dodgers had the most stories written about them due to all their records broken. This year, usually the Dodgers would only have a few stories written about them. They were underperforming and weren’t up to their standard as a team worth over 1 billion dollars. For this past regular season overall, they were still dominant, but not nearly as dominant as their 2024 season. In fact, the team went through a bit of a slump in the middle of the summer, their worst since 2017. The team underperformed during June and July. Players like Freddy Freeman and Mookie Betts were having down months and periods of decline. This would lead to Dodgers manager, Dave Roberts, calling out the team’s lack of focus to the media. These struggles would lead to an inconsistent August and September. The struggles led to concerns among players and fans nationally. The team would eventually pick things up toward the end of the season, and this would lead them to the World Series in the end.
World Series Matchup: The young and evolving Blue Jays team was for sure going to put up a fight. Their season was great, as they led the standings for more than half the season, battling it out with other teams in the AL East to eventually beat the Yankees by half a game and win overall. Not to mention, the Blue Jays knew that they would have to put up a fight considering the Dodgers were a part of last year’s World Series. The Dodgers would know how to play together; most of the same players were on the team last year, which led them to the championship. The Blue Jays needed to prepare to play in a high atmosphere and knew what they wanted for their 2nd year. They knew what the Dodgers were fighting for.
Outcome of events: This year’s World Series was exciting to say the least. Plus, the 2025 World Series gave something that the 2024 World Series didn’t: a fight. The Dodgers were the best they could be, to say the least, but the Blue Jays easily held their own, taking the series all the way to game 7. They just fell short. At the bottom of the 8th, the Blue Jays were ahead. The Dodgers would thank their lucky stars for a Miguel Rojas game-tying home run in the top of the 9th inning. This would send the game into extra innings. Due to a turn of events at the end of the game, the Dodgers would beat the Blue Jays in a shocking defeat. Catcher Will Smith would hit a game-leading home run in the top of the 11th inning. Even the media thought the Blue Jays actually had a chance against the Dodgers due to the fact that they were putting up such a great fight because of their young offense. Not to mention, the Blue Jays’ pitching this year had the Dodgers on their toes.
Conclusion: So? In conclusion, I think it was a little bit of both luck and history in the making. The Dodgers were still the Dodgers this year: just not up to their standards. They put up a great battle during the World Series, but the Blue Jays kept them fighting. Will the Dodgers win again next year? It’s too early to tell, considering the season just officially concluded about three weeks ago. Keep an eye out to see what the Dodgers do over the off-season, and then we’ll have a better idea at the end of January.
