Dodgers Reputation As Playoff Chokers Officially Over With Second World Series Win Of 2020s | Ian Miller
The Los Angeles Dodgers have been Major League Baseball's most successful organization over the past decade. They've made the playoffs every year since 2013, and won their division in 11 of the past 12 seasons. Their 2022 season was one of the most dominant in baseball history; 111 wins, 22-game lead over the second-place San Diego Padres, and a +334 run differential.
But for all that regular season success, they had just one World Series win to show for it. And that championship was inaccurately tainted in the minds of some fans because it came in a lockdown-shortened 2020 season.
READ: Of Course The 2020 Dodgers World Series Title Counts
After back-to-back losses in the World Series in 2017 and 2018, the Dodgers lost in the NLDS in 2019. Won in 2020, lost in the NLCS in 2021, then the NLDS in 2022 and 2023. Thanks to all those disappointing exits, they developed an undeserved reputation as postseason "chokers."
There's no asterisk or question about their 2024 World Championship however. And a new analysis of expected postseason success in the Dodgers decade of dominance shows that, contrary to expectations, they've won exactly the amount of titles they should have.
BRONX, NEW YORK - OCTOBER 30, 2024: Teammates celebrate with "Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Walker Buehler (21), left, after winning the World Series. Game 5 of the World Series against the Yankees at Yankees Stadium in New York City Wednesday, October 30, 2024. (Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Dodgers Expected Titles Matches Their Actual Number Perfectly
Ben Lindbergh from The Ringer published an analysis of the Opening Day probability of winning the World Series, per Fangraphs, over the last decade, as well as the same probability at the start of the postseason.
Turns out, based on either starting point, the Dodgers have won almost exactly the number of titles they should have.
"Based on the odds on each Opening Day, the Dodgers 'deserved' to win 1.7 championships over this dozen-year span," Lindberg wrote. "And based on the odds when each postseason started, the Dodgers ‘deserved’ to win … 1.99. In other words, given the hands they held in each of those 12 seasons, the most reasonable expectation was two titles. And when have sports fans been known not to be reasonable?"
The lesson to learn here is that it's really, really hard to win the World Series. Even if you're the best team in baseball, as the Dodgers so frequently are.
Over the last decade, entering October, the highest probability they had of winning a championship was 21%. Nearly 80% of the time, in computer simulations, they'd fall short. And that was the highest probability.
The baseball playoffs aren't designed to find the best team, they're designed to create chaos, and determine the team playing the best at the right time. This year's Dodgers team almost certainly wasn't the best of their run of success; injuries to the pitching staff decimated their rotation and forced them into several bullpen games. Freddie Freeman played the first two rounds on a busted ankle and with a rib injury. Then Shohei Ohtani got hurt in the World Series.
They won anyway. Because they finally got hot at the right time, with Tommy Edman, Mookie Betts and Max Muncy leading them through the NLCS, and Freeman and Teoscar Hernandez leading them through the World Series. It's impossible to be playoff "chokers" anyway, given the randomness inherent in small sample sizes, but the Dodgers are far from it. They've done exactly what they should have.