The Los Angeles Dodgers have officially become baseball’s Goliath. After winning back-to-back World Series and adding Tarik Skubal at the July 31 trade deadline, Los Angeles enters September as the team every other contender is trying to knock off.
The Skubal trade is what pushed the Dodgers past the point of playful envy and into full villain territory. Detroit sent the reigning AL Cy Young winner to Los Angeles for a package of top prospects that included outfielder Josue De Paula and right-hander Emmet Sheehan, plus a competitive balance pick.
Skubal has been every bit as advertised. In 12 starts as a Dodger, he is 8-1 with a 2.09 ERA and 92 strikeouts in 78 innings. He slots into a rotation that already featured Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow when healthy, and Roki Sasaki. Two Cy Young winners at the top of the rotation is a nightmare matchup for anyone in October.
The lineup is exactly what you would expect. Shohei Ohtani is having another MVP-caliber season on the mound and at the plate. Freddie Freeman is back in vintage form. Mookie Betts continues to defy age. Will Smith has quietly become one of the top three offensive catchers in baseball.
Every other National League contender knows the road goes through Los Angeles. The Brewers own the best record and hope to earn the bye. The Phillies and Cubs have loaded rosters and are hunting home field advantage in the wild card round. The Padres are hanging on to the final playoff spot and would love the chance to spoil the Dodgers again.
Betting markets have made Los Angeles the runaway favorite. The Dodgers open October at odds under +250 to win the World Series, meaning they are essentially given a 30 percent chance to become the first team since the 2000 Yankees to three-peat.
The critics have already started. Rival executives quietly complain about competitive balance, though the Dodgers point out that every dollar they spend goes through the same collective bargaining agreement everyone else operates under. Fair or not, the perception issue is real.
What the Dodgers cannot control is playoff variance. They lost to the Padres in the 2024 Division Series before winning it all last year. Baseball punishes even the best teams in short series. Skubal has never thrown a postseason inning outside of Detroit’s brief 2024 run.
The regular season ends September 27. The Dodgers will be the favorite in every round they play. And if they close it out, this becomes one of the most dominant sustained runs in modern baseball history.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
