When Luis Gonzalez fought off a cut fastball from Mariano Rivera and managed to hit it into center field to decide Game 7 of the 2001 World Series, it ended the New York Yankees’ run of three consecutive World Series championships.
No World Series champion has repeated since the Yankees’ three-peat.
Half of the past 24 World Series winners haven’t even made the playoffs the following season. Five teams actually won more games as defending champions than they did in their title seasons but six (including the Texas Rangers last season) had losing records in the follow-up to their title-winning year.
Seven teams (including the 2021 Dodgers) made it as far as the League Championship Series in their title defense season. But only one defending champion since the Yankees – the 2009 Philadelphia Phillies – made it back to the World Series.
But none of them followed up their World Series win with the kind of offseason the Dodgers just had. When pitchers and catchers report to Camelback Ranch on Monday ahead of the first workout of spring training on Tuesday, the Dodgers will do so after adding a two-time Cy Young Award winner (Blake Snell), a coveted international star (Roki Sasaki), another established international player (Hyeseong Kim), two elite relievers (Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates) and another former All-Star (Michael Conforto) to a roster that saw relatively few subtractions.
It was enough to rankle many. But will it be enough to reverse the trend and repeat as champions in 2025?
“It’s extremely difficult to win a World Series and it’s even more difficult to repeat as champion,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said, confirming history. “During our offseason conversations as a staff, we agreed that the two biggest factors – beyond obviously how difficult it is to win – is, one, there is a kind of complacency that can consume a group after winning a World Series and, two, you have usually had to red-line your pitching in October in order to win those 11 games.”
With a wry smile, Dodger general manager Brandon Gomes dismisses the “red-line” issue as “a tax we don’t think we’re going to have to pay” this season.
Indeed, of the eight starting pitchers from whom the Dodgers will choose their starting rotation for 2025 – Snell, Sasaki, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tony Gonsolin, Dustin May, Landon Knack, Shohei Ohtani and Clayton Kershaw (eventually) – only Yamamoto and Knack threw a pitch last October.
“Fortunately for our 2025 team, unfortunately for our quality of life in 2024, our pitching was not red-lined,” Friedman acknowledged. “We have a number of pitchers coming back who are relatively fresh because they were unable to pitch in October.”
The same can’t be said for the Dodgers’ bullpen. Their relievers carried them to the World Series title, pitching 86⅔ innings during the postseason compared to 55⅔ from their three surviving starters (Yamamoto and the departed Walker Buehler and Jack Flaherty).
There could be lingering issues as a result – Evan Phillips missed the World Series with a sore shoulder, Michael Kopech pitched through a forearm issue. But the additions of Scott and Yates have fortified the bullpen group.
“Every year my concern is focused on the bullpen and the inherent volatility that comes with that line of work,” Friedman said, saying his level of concern couldn’t be heightened any more. “That volatility gets at why we were so aggressive (in adding Scott and Yates).”
That aggressiveness this past winter should also help fight any complacency that might set in.
“To infuse some new blood, some guys who are hungry, I think it’s good for us,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said, claiming complacency isn’t in the “DNA” of the team’s core group.
“We definitely talk about that during the process,” Friedman said. “But just like any time we’re looking to acquire a player, we look at it from a sliding scale of talent and makeup. Makeup is a word often used in baseball parlance. Part of the definition for us is a desire to win. That is part of our vetting process for making a long-term commitment to a player.”
At the same time, the Dodgers’ core group of returning players “is not wired for complacency to be an issue,” Friedman said.
“It’s not in their DNA. It’s not in my DNA,” said Roberts, whose team opens the season in Tokyo with a two-game series against the Chicago Cubs next month.
Friedman said “watching them work on a daily basis” is the main reason he feels confident complacency will not set in. Talking to the players during the offseason only convinced him further.
“The parade really had a profound effect on guys,” Friedman said. “Talking to them, there is a real sense that they want to do whatever is possible to have that feeling again and a real commitment to doing everything they can to make this a golden era of Dodgers baseball.”
That “golden era” goal is one Friedman has proclaimed multiple times since the World Series victory last fall. Roberts embraces it and said words like “legacy” and “standard” will be featured in his remarks to the full squad next week in Arizona. He might reference dynasties in other sports like the Lakers, Chicago Bulls and New England Patriots as being in a class the Dodgers could join.
But MLB has made it more difficult for its champions over the past 25 years, expanding the playoff format and introducing more hurdles. The 2024 Dodgers were only the eighth team in 30 years since the wild card was first introduced to win the World Series after posting the best record in the regular season. A third wild-card team was added in 2022.
“It’s just hard,” Roberts said when asked to explain why baseball has gone so long without a repeat champion. “Everyone says the best team doesn’t always win. The people that know baseball know that.
“It’s just hard. I’m sorry. That’s a bad answer. But it’s just hard. It’s the honest answer. It’s the truth.”