2025 was another banner year for the Los Angeles Dodgers, literally.
Coming off one of the best LA baseball seasons in recent memory, with free agent addition Shohei Ohtani looking like an absolute steal at a $700 million price tag – even if much of that fee was deferred – the Dodgers had a new Comissioner's Trophy in their case, a ton of World Series merch flying off the shelf, and a chance to celebrate the occasion all season long, from giveaway jerseys to mockup rings awarded to fans willing to line up early in Chinatown for the occasion.
Add in a few encouraging free agent additions like Blake Snell, Tanner Scott, and Roki Sasaki, returning players like Tyler Glasnow, and steps forward by intriguing youngsters like Andy Pages, Emmet Sheehan, and Justin Wrobleski, and the Dodgers looked like a team that could not only return to the World Series in 2025, but challenge for the greatest regular season record of all time.
Instead, the Dodgers largely underwhelmed in the regular season, with their injury list seemingly extending onto a second page as Dave Roberts looked desperately for a way to keep his team together when he didn't always know who was available from game to game. Factor in some offensive struggles from Mookie Betts and Michael Conforto, defensive issues from Max Muncy and Teoscar Hernandez, and a trade deadline that netted just Alex Call and Brock Stewart, neither of whom had much of an impact in the postseason, and the chances of a second-straight World Series parade felt unlikely.
And yet, for as bad as the Dodgers played at times in 2025, including multiple stints where Kike Hernandez had to close out a blowout loss on the mound, Los Angeles just wouldn't go away. They took care of business in the Wild Card Round effortlessly against the Cincinnati Reds after playing their way out of a bye, beat the Philadelphia Phillies with a little help from an 11th-inning error by relief pitcher Orion Kerkering, and ultimately punched their ticket to the World Series with a series win over the winningest team in the NL, the Milwaukee Brewers.
Sized up against a Cinderella Blue Jays team with home-field advantage, the Dodgers were able to take care of business due to a series of surprisingly lucky breaks and now find themselves in a position to go for the elusive three-peat, an accomplishment baseball hasn't seen since the New York Yankees at the turn of the century.
So, with spring training rapidly approaching, what was the biggest surprise of the Dodgers' 2025 MLB season? That goes to a Japanese pitcher who really stepped up his game in the playoffs when his team needed him most.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto clears Roki Sasaki for Dodgers' surprise of 2025
On paper, it's hard to find a player who had a bigger turnaround in 2025 than Roki Sasaki.
After being incredibly sought after on the free agent market, including by his eventual World Series rivals, the Blue Jays, Sasaki struggled as a starter early on, landing on IL with a long-term shoulder injury that was initially considered potentially season-ending.
While away from the spotlight, Sasaki continued to work his way back to health, eventually landing in OKC to rehab his arm with the Comets, and in the heartland, something interesting happened: Sasaki got some reps out of the bullpen as a relief pitcher. With Scott, Kerby Yates, and Blake Treinen all struggling to close out games more often than not when the Dodgers called their numbers, Roberts and company gave Sasaki a chance to test his mettle out of their bullpen, and it largely worked, with the rookie earning three saves in nine postseason appearances with an ERA of 0.84.
And yet, while Sasaki was called the Dodgers' closer in October, who did the team turn to in Game 7 when they needed to close out the Blue Jays and punch their ticket home to LA with the Commissioner's Trophy in tow? That would be Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who threw 2.2 innings of scoreless baseball to set up a World Series win.
Now overall, Yamamoto's 2025 season was an improvement over his 2024 production pretty much across the board, with the second-year MLB player earning Cy Young consideration for his 2.49 ERA over 173.2 innings pitched, but in the playoffs? Goodness, the one-time Orix Buffalo took his game up to an incredible degree, going a full nine innings in two of his final four appearances of the postseason before throwing that gem of a seventh, eighth, and ninth inning in Game 7. Yamamoto became a hero for his pitching performances on such low rest, and he was rewarded with the World Series MVP award as a result, an honor that was unanimously his despite huge performances by Ohtani, Miguel Rojas, and others.
Simply put, if Yamamoto wasn't available for the World Series, the Dodgers don't win it.
As the highest-paid international pitcher in MLB history, there were legitimate questions regarding Yamamoto's ceiling heading into 2025, with some openly wondering if the Dodgers made a mistake giving him $325 million over 12 years. But now? Now Yamamoto looks like a steal at that figure, with the potential to earn even more when he can opt out of his contract in 2029. If that isn't the biggest – and most welcomed – surprise of the 2025 MLB season, not just for the Dodgers but for baseball as a whole, it's hard to pinpoint a development that had more of an impact on the campaign's final outcome.
