Can Dodgers repeat as World Series champions? History suggests the odds are against them

It's hard, you know -- repeating as the champions of a sport. This is the case for any athletic pursuit, and it's probably fair to say it's especially difficult in baseball, which has so much structural randomness and a related knack for defying expectations. 

To illustrate this point, let's appreciate that it's been a quarter century since a Major League Baseball team has won consecutive World Series titles. Over that same span, the NFL has seen two teams win two Super Bowls in a row, and four teams have won at least two NBA Finals in a row. In the here and now, the Los Angeles Dodgers are still very much alive in their quest to become the first team to win the World Series in consecutive seasons since the New York Yankees of late 1990s and early 2000s. This is baseball, so any team in the postseason is capable of winning it, and the 2025 Dodgers are indeed one of the best teams in the league and have a roster that seems tailored to a deep October run. In fact, they are considered the World Series favorite (+260, per FanDuel).

That story is still being written, and to add context to it, let's run down every team across the years that's won two or more World Series in a row. Our starting point is the onset of the modern era in 1903, when the National League and the still somewhat-fledgling American League began sending their respective champions to the "World's Series." Here's a look at that most exclusive company the current Dodgers are aiming to join. 

In all, just 14 teams have won two or more World Series in a row, and just seven franchises make up those 14 teams. The flagship Yankees account for six of the 14 title repeats, and just the Yankees and A's have managed more than one repeat team. Likewise, just the Yankees and A's have won three or titles in a row at any point. It seems unlikely any team will ever challenge the five trophies in a row hoisted by Casey Stengel's 1949-53 Yankees, which bridged the Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle eras in the Bronx. More recently, the 2001 Yankees came tantalizingly close to extending their title run to four in a row, but one of the greatest World Series ever played went the Arizona Diamondbacks' way instead.

It should be noted that it was much easier to pull this off such dynastic behavior prior to the onset of free agency in Major League Baseball in the mid-1970s, which actually helped parity and competitive balance. As for more contemporary times, yes, it's easier than ever to qualify for the playoffs in MLB, but thanks to all those rounds of play it's more difficult than ever to make a deep run. No one is more acutely aware of that than the current Dodgers, whose 13 straight appearances (and five 100-win seasons during that span) have yielded "just" two titles -- one during the COVID-abbreviated/compromised 2020 season and one, of course, in 2024. 

So will the Dodgers soon break the "repeat" drought in MLB that's perhaps more feature than bug? That season- and era-defining question will be answered soon enough. Much of MLB history, though, says it probably won't happen.