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Alex Rodriguez isn't sugarcoating it — the Los Angeles Dodgers are the team to beat in baseball right now.
The Dodgers are off to a sensational start to the 2025 season, going 5-0 with the second-best run differential in the early part of the year at plus-14 runs. That's actually the second-best mark to Rodriguez's former team, the New York Yankees, who have a plus-20 run differential. However, the Dodgers are obviously the defending World Series champs, having defeated the Yankees in five games during the 2024 World Series.
“Yeah,” says Rodriguez in a one-on-one interview when asked if the Yankees are the favorites to win the World Series. “And you know how hard it is to repeat, you know what I mean? I think the Dodgers can make an argument. They're head and shoulders, the class of baseball right now.”
The Dodgers return essentially their entire core from last season, including dual-threat Shohei Ohtani and 2024 World Series MVP Freddie Freeman. That's in addition to their major offseason additions which includes prized international pitching sensation Roki Sasaki.
Los Angeles has become the powerhouse of Major League Baseball, winning two World Series titles over the past five years. They've also advanced to the postseason 12 consecutive times, which is two away from the record set by the Atlanta Braves. They also made back-to-back World Series appearances during the 2017 and 2018 seasons.
Outside of their clear success on the baseball diamond, they also have the largest MLB payroll at $330 million. For perspective, the Yankees rank third with a $288 million payroll.
“They might be the first team in professional sports that can do a billion dollars of gross revenue,” says Rodriguez. “Those revenues are translated to deploying great resources on the field and they have it all going. When you think about the Dodgers, it's a trifecta. Between business and business operations, player development and drafting, what they do in free agency and then what they do in the community, it's pretty phenomenal to see what they're doing.”
While the Dodgers still have a few more World Series titles to chase to match the early millennium Yankees, they're on the track to doing so. The Bronx Bombers won four World Series titles between 1996 and 2000 and won a fifth with Rodriguez during the 2009 season. That's not mentioning the 2001 and 2003 World Series appearances to add to that, including the 13 consecutive postseason appearances between 1995 and 2007.
The Yankees were also notable at the time for having by far the largest MLB payroll, leading the league every year from 1999 until 2013. Unsurprisingly, they often signed and acquired the biggest names every offseason, which they did with Rodriguez prior to the start of the 2004 season.
The three-time MVP acknowledges that this current version of the Dodgers reminds him a lot of the Yankees from his era.
“Yeah, you never thought that the Yankees can even have a comp,” says Rodriguez. “But you can make an argument that they're kind of looking up to the Dodgers now from that trifecta point of view.”
It's worth mentioning that Rodriguez is still optimistic that his former team can chase a title this season despite mounting injuries, including a season-ending one to ace pitcher Gerrit Cole. However, it's clear that until the Yankees proven they can beat the Dodgers, Los Angeles is the “class” of the MLB right now.
