TORONTO — Before the dynasty, there was disappointment. Mark Walter, the chief executive of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ ownership group, sat across from the organization’s white whale in free agency as recently as 2023 and acknowledged that he viewed the first decade of the Guggenheim-led ownership as a failure.
Walter went so far as to tell the free agent, Shohei Ohtani, that for all the Dodgers had done, they had just one World Series title to show for it. That was not enough.
Be it an admission, truth or simply a sales tactic to land Ohtani, it worked. Ohtani signed with the Dodgers, and they went on to beat the New York Yankees in the World Series in that first season together. Ohtani celebrated his first championship ring by asking for nine more.
The Dodgers got to rejoice again once Saturday night turned to Sunday morning, toppling the Toronto Blue Jays in a Game 7 classic to become baseball’s first repeat champions in a quarter century.
Walter, who greenlit the richest payroll in baseball history to help make it happen, can rest easy now.
“It takes pressure off of me,” Walter said in the late-night Game 7 celebration, before referencing that conversation with Ohtani, “because I promised him we’d win one. And we did it.”
Pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto was at the center of the celebration after Game 7. (Patrick Smith / Getty Images)
A third World Series title in six years removes all doubt about the company the Dodgers keep. A modern-day dynasty resides in Los Angeles.
“I don’t know if this is the best team ever assembled or anything like that,” said Miguel Rojas, one of the heroes in Game 7. “You guys tell me after. But it’s pretty close to being one of the best teams ever.”
This marked the Dodgers’ 13th consecutive trip to the postseason, a feat only topped by the 1990s Atlanta Braves, who made the playoffs 14 times in a row but won just one title over that span.
There had not been a repeat champion since the Yankees rattled off three in a row (and nearly a fourth) from 1998 to 2000. That was before Major League Baseball expanded its postseason field two different times and turned the annual tournament into a gauntlet. Only one other team since the turn of the century has won three titles within a six-year window — the San Francisco Giants, who won three in five years (2010, 2012, 2014) but missed the postseason entirely in the seasons in between.
It’s a run that, during different points in 2025, seemed to wear the Dodgers down. They opened the 2024 season across the globe in Seoul, South Korea, and played from March 20 through Oct. 30, when they clinched in Game 5 at Yankee Stadium.
This year, it began with Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki being showcased at the Tokyo Dome in Japan for Opening Day on March 18 and lasted through an extra-innings Game 7 that technically ended on Nov. 2. It was the first season in baseball history to both start and finish outside of the United States.
“Everyone was feeling it for sure,” Max Muncy said when it was over.
As much as the Dodgers pushed talk of a repeat into the periphery, the weight of expectations during the regular season made another champagne celebration in October look even further away. As the Dodgers neared a return trip to the Fall Classic, Dave Roberts conceded that just trying to get back there took its toll.
“It’s hard to do that when you’re carrying baggage,” Roberts said.
A team that slumbered through much of the regular season still romped its way through to the World Series, anyway. They went 9-1 against the postseason field before squaring off against the Blue Jays in a classic series that went the distance. It was only in the World Series, Freddie Freeman said, that the talk of a dynasty became “louder.”
“When you have that pressure and you embrace it like we did and you accomplish it, I think that’s what makes it that much sweeter,” Freeman said.
The Blue Jays were a force, pulling on a clinic in how to generate constant offensive pressure with a superstar in the middle of it all in Vladimir Guerrero Jr., one of the few capable of generating the kind of fear Ohtani does when he steps into the batter’s box.
After the Dodgers rallied to win a seventh and decisive game, Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman marveled at what took place. The Dodgers, he admitted, hadn’t played well during the World Series. Their offense went dormant, with a .203 team batting average for the series that was the lowest for a champion since 1966. Toronto dictated much of the terms of the series, until they didn’t.
The Dodgers won anyway, overcoming a 3-2 deficit heading on the road for Games 6 and 7 to bring home another championship. Another flag to fly forever to commemorate what has been accomplished here.
The accomplishment did not feel like the end of something. Nor should it, with Ohtani still under contract for eight more seasons and a farm system that ranks among the best in the sport. For years, Friedman has had a common refrain for large-market, high-spending teams like the Dodgers: the cliff will come eventually for everyone. The Dodgers want to be the exception.
For a group that’s proven itself to be exceptional, maybe it’s not that foolish. All that’s left to do is build on what they’ve already done.
“We’re going to enjoy this tonight,” Friedman said. “I think it’s going to take until we’re out of here to be able to really look back. Again, our overarching goals for this to be the golden era of Dodger baseball.”
Friedman pointed to the creep of the baseball calendar ahead. The general manager’s meetings, the annual kickoff of the offseason and the start of the 2026 season and another title defense are around the corner.
“(It’s time to) start thinking about the 2026 season, which feels overwhelming right now,” Friedman said.