MLB 2025 World Series Odds: Can Anyone Stop the Dodgers?
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Willie Bee
- February 19, 2025
Under the direction of George Steinbrenner in the early days of free agency back in the 1970s, the New York Yankees became the team everyone loved to hate thanks to The Boss sitting ready and willing to open up his checkbook and sign big stars.
That torch has now been passed to the Los Angeles Dodgers after several winters of earning the animosity of fans with large spending sprees. Following so many postseason disappointments, save for the farce that was 2020, the Dodgers earned a full-season World Series title last October by taking down the Yankees in five games.
And now, top-rated sportsbooks have made Los Angeles a huge favorite to defend the crown and become the first team to win consecutive Fall Classics since the Yankees won three in a row from 1998-2000.
2025 World Series Winner Odds
Can Dodgers Be Stopped in NL West?
It wouldn’t be fair to proclaim Los Angeles as a prohibitive favorite, but that also wouldn’t be an entirely inaccurate statement. Most oddsmakers have laid +250 to +275 chalk on the Dodgers to win their ninth World Championship.
There’s a rather large gap between Los Angeles and the next team on futures odds boards. That would be the Yankees in the +700 to +800 range.
It would be both fair and accurate to lay the prohibitive favorite tag on the Dodgers to win the NL West. A -450 price is about as good a return as bettors can hope to get, with -650 showing up in some spots. Only the Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres are seen as potential competition, with both priced around +800 to win the NL West. It would take a complete collapse by Los Angeles, or the Snakes or Friars playing well over their heads to keep the Dodgers from a 12th division flag in the last 13 years.
LA 10-Games Ahead on Win Totals Chart
Maybe the best way to explain just what is expected of the Dodgers this season is by looking at team win totals released by sharp sportsbooks. A consensus number for Los Angeles is 103.5 wins, a lofty number for any team in any season.
What makes that 103.5-win total look even larger is the fact it is 10 triumphs more than the Dodgers’ closest challenger in the National League (Atlanta) and 12 more than New York at the top of American League projections. From there we can assume anything less than 95 wins would be a disappointment, and 90 or fewer – which could translate into not winning the division – would qualify as a collapse.
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Dodgers Could Be Their Own Worst Enemy
The question posed in the title can be quickly and easily answered by first pointing an accusatory finger at the Dodgers themselves.
Let’s not forget this is a Los Angeles team that was indeed its own worst enemy in 2022 and 2023 with early exits from the playoffs. So disappointing were the Dodgers for falling well short of MLB odds projections, that there was talk of revamping the playoff format to prevent teams that excelled during the regular season from coming up short in October.
Ankles, Elbows and Comebacks
In baseball, as in any sport, there are these things called injuries, and the Dodgers are beginning Spring Training with their training room already doing a brisk business:
- 2024 NL MVP Shohei Ohtani will fare following a second Tommy John surgery that kept him off the mound in 2024.
- Tyler Glasnow is another member of the projected rotation that has been known to be fragile.
- Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki are also penciled into the rotation.
- Many of the arms serving as depth are either coming back from injury or looking at missing much, if not all, of 2025 following surgeries.
- Position players also dealing with maladies include first baseman Freddie Freeman and catcher Will Smith, both dealing with ankle injuries.
Bright Red Target on Dodgers’ Blue Backs
With a roster chockful of stars, the Dodgers are going to fill Chavez Ravine on a regular basis. Los Angeles will also fill opposing stadiums when they take to the road, and that will fuel opponents to beat the best.
Three of those foes can be found in the NL East where Atlanta, Philadelphia and New York hold promise of providing MLB’s most exciting division race in 2025. All three are expected to play on in October, and all three are capable of preventing LA from winning a 27th NL Pennant.
Should the Dodgers make it back to the World Series and find the Yankees also there once again, we know good and well New York will be out for revenge after such an embarrassing performance last October.
Yes, there are teams that can stop the Dodgers from a championship repeat this season. After all, this is baseball where stranger things have happened before. But the team the Dodgers have to worry most about is themselves.
2025 National League Winner Odds
*The line and/or odds on picks in this article might have moved since the content was commissioned. For updated line movements, visit BMR’s free betting odds product.
