The Los Angeles Dodgers have been world champions for less than 12 hours, but they’re already favored to be in the exact same place one year from today.
BetMGM released their odds for the 2025 World Series champion on Thursday morning, and the Dodgers lead the pack at +400 to win it all and become the first repeat World Series champs since the 2000 New York Yankees.
Behind the Dodgers are a familiar list of teams, many of which we saw in the earlier rounds of this year’s playoffs. The Yankees are tied with the Atlanta Braves in second at +800, followed by the Baltimore Orioles and Philadelphia Phillies in fourth at +1100.
Meanwhile, the Chicago White Sox, Colorado Rockies and Miami Marlins are all last at +50000.
The Dodgers could be even better next year
As dominant as the Dodgers looked this postseason, they entered October with an enormous headwind in the form of injuries to their rotation. They beat the San Diego Padres, New York Mets and Yankees, all 2025 contenders, with only three usable starting pitchers.
Things might be a bit different next season, barring a similar run of awful injury misfortune. While Game 1 starter Jack Flaherty and Game 3 starter/Game 5 closer Walker Buehler are both headed to free agency, Yoshinobu Yamamoto is coming back, as are Tyler Glasnow and, most tantalizingly of all, the pitching side of Shohei Ohtani.
That’s three spots in the rotation already solidified for the Dodgers, with the potential returns of Tony Gonsolin, Dustin May and Bobby Miller all waiting in the wings after lost 2024 seasons. Clayton Kershaw also holds a player option for 2025 and has announced his intention to return.
Any of the above players could encounter more injuries in 2025, but it’s hard not to see 2024 as a worst-case scenario that the Dodgers more than survived. They lost more than a rotation’s worth of pitchers and still came out of it with a trophy, and now they could add even more pitchers to the mix this offseason.
What could the Dodgers do this offseason?
The Dodgers are already well set up for 2025, but that doesn’t mean their offseason to-do list is empty.
In addition to the above starting pitching situation, Los Angeles’ pending free agents include outfielder Teoscar Hernández, top reliever Blake Treinen, trusted reliever Daniel Hudson, shortstop Miguel Rojas and utility man Kiké Hernández.
Re-signing the first Hernández will be the biggest priority, unless the Dodgers think they can do better. It would be hard to do so, given that…