Bradford DoolittleNov 2, 2025, 12:33 AM ETCloseMLB writer and analyst for ESPN.com Former NBA writer and analyst for ESPN.com Been with ESPN since 2013
TORONTO — On a night when the Los Angeles Dodgers became the first team in 25 years to repeat as World Series champions, one glorious era in the franchise’s history ended while another one very much looks like it might continue indefinitely.
While Kershaw is calling it quits, the team he is leaving behind is as strong as it has ever been. Indeed, it might be as strong as any team has ever been when you consider a multiyear window, and the trajectory of the franchise strongly suggests this already tremendous period of domination is not going to end anytime soon.
As the Dodgers bid adieu to an all-time great, it’s worth considering the Kershaw era as a whole; where the Dodgers were when he arrived in Los Angeles as a touted first-round hotshot; and what they have become since — which is, simply put, one of baseball’s greatest dynasties.
Kershaw was great, but the Dodgers, overall, lacked an identity. They weren’t even the economic bullies that they’ve become. During Kershaw’s first five seasons, the Dodgers ranked from eighth to 10th in Opening Day payroll, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts.
Then came the Guggenheims, and after the 2014 season, Andrew Friedman arrived from the Tampa Bay Rays as the Dodgers’ lead baseball executive.
“I think when the new ownership group came in, and Andrew came in, I just think it felt very, like, professional,” Kershaw said. “It felt very, like, ‘This is how you do it.’ And I was younger too, so I didn’t understand it. But now … all of us are in it together.”
By the time Friedman arrived, the Dodgers’ climb back to the elite was already underway. They won back-to-back National League West titles in 2013 and 2014, seasons in which Kershaw added two more Cy Young Awards and an MVP trophy. But the Dodgers’ pennant drought persisted.
Since then, the Dodgers have morphed, re-morphed and morphed again into baseball’s most relentless organization. The stars have trickled in nearly every season, either from within or without. For every superstar the Dodgers have acquired — including Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman (all former MVPs, like Kershaw) — others such as Manny Machado and Trea Turner have come and gone.
The Dodgers’ payroll reached No. 2 in 2013, and it has remained in the top five ever since. According to Cot’s, L.A. began the season with MLB’s highest payroll seven times, including this one.
Yet all through this rise in revenue and payroll alike, the Dodgers never slacked in scouting, development, analytics, research, medical science or any facet in running an organization. If it exists, the Dodgers are in pursuit of industry leadership in it. And in doing so, they have become what some see as baseball’s newest evil empire.
“There’s always critics,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “We’re in a big market. We’re expected to win. Our fans expect us to win. I can’t speak to what revenue we’re bringing in, but our ownership puts it back into players, a big chunk of it. That’s the way it should be with all ownership groups.”
What is the Dodgers’ identity? Really, it’s all the above. And more. When Kershaw joined the Dodgers, they were a proud franchise that arguably was defined by a lustrous past. Now, the Dodgers are the one team that can claim to be all things.
“I think that should be everyone’s goal,” L.A. starter Tyler Glasnow said. “Try to build the best playoff team you possibly can. You obviously have to get there, and it’s a little different for the Dodgers. They have done so many things for so many years, from development to signing guys. They’re in a different position than most [teams].”
Whatever their opponents’ strength is, the Dodgers are going to do it better. The brain trust in L.A. remains young. The resources keep growing. And so the chasm between the Dodgers and everyone else keeps getting wider.
Kershaw arrived with a franchise with a proud past trending toward the middle. He leaves with one whose ceiling might be too high to identify.
“It starts with Andrew and [Roberts] and all the way down,” Kershaw said. “There’s no hierarchy here. Everybody does their job in trying to win the game. There’s not one thing that’s more or less important than the other thing.”
But Kershaw never left, and the Dodgers never tried to push him out, even though they likely could have replaced his late-career rate of production with a younger, more cost-efficient player. Instead, they let Kershaw linger in his annual decision on whether to keep going and rolled out the red carpet when he wanted to return. Because of that, he will become one of the most precious things in baseball: a one-team Hall of Famer.
“The Dodgers gave me an opportunity to go to minor league camp in 2013,” Rojas recalled after Game 6. “Then I got a chance to play in the big leagues in 2014 when I really wasn’t an impact player in the minors. They gave me an opportunity, and I will never forget that.”
Enrique Hernandez cited the communication between the team and the players as what separates the Dodgers from other teams.
“Other organizations, they’re like, ‘We’re going to do things our way, and you’re just a player, you work for us,'” Hernandez said. “But I think these guys just want to make sure that we’re on top of our game at all times.”
That too is what the Dodgers have become: a team that players want to play for, where they feel appreciated.
“Even playing against them, watching, it was just always in the back of my mind: I wanted to be a Dodger and play on that team,” L.A. starter Blake Snell said during the NL Championship Series. “To be here now, it’s a dream come true. I couldn’t wish for anything more.”
The Dodgers don’t sign every free agent, though last winter it felt like it at times. As the Dodgers’ payroll has increased, so has their international influence. Of course, the marquee signing was Ohtani during the 2023-24 offseason. Following in his footsteps have been Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki, both of whom played vital roles in the Dodgers’ run to the latest championship.
Accompanying the focus on overseas stars has been a tremendous growth in business partnerships looking to capitalize on the overwhelming popularity and attention that is given to the Japanese superstars, particularly Ohtani. So, the Dodgers’ revenue not only keeps growing, but it’s hard to imagine what the ceiling for it could be.
As a proxy to illustrate how consistent the Dodgers’ pipeline is, consider this: According to Baseball America’s annual preseason prospect ratings, the Dodgers have not ranked outside of the top 10 since 2013. This season, which they entered with baseball’s highest payroll and a new World Series trophy in tow, ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel ranked their system No. 1 in the sport.
“People just overlook the fact that every year, we probably have a top-five farm system in baseball,” Roberts said. “This year, I think we probably have the No. 1 or No. 2. We pick at the bottom of the draft every year, towards the bottom, and we still have young guys, whether by way of trade or development, that continue to help and contribute.”
This is what it all comes down to. The Dodgers aren’t beating everyone in just spending or just analytics or just scouting or just development or just free agency. They are beating everyone in everything.
“You see free agents and you see other guys, they want to be a part of something that is built to last,” Kershaw said. “We don’t want to be one-hit wonders as free agents. You know when you sign up to be a Dodger that you’ll be in these [playoff] situations.”
No, the Dodgers aren’t a shoo-in to win the World Series every year. The just-completed World Series was the perfect illustration of that. With a bounce here or there the other way in two of Toronto’s losses, the Blue Jays would be champs and Game 7 would have never happened. That’s always going to be the case in baseball’s current playoff format.
But the Dodgers are a virtual shoo-in to be considered a leading World Series contender every year. The early 2026 title odds began to circulate this week and — spoiler alert — the Dodgers are already prohibitive favorites to win the 2026 World Series.
If you have Dodgers fatigue, you better put on a pot of coffee, because unless something drastic changes, they are not going away for a very, very long time. And if you wonder what that means in the context of baseball history, consider this: The great New York Yankees dynasty, the lineage that stretched from Ruth to DiMaggio to Mantle, lasted from 1921 to 1964.
When a team reaches this ongoing level of organizational success, hovering above all others, it can create a self-reinforcing dynamic that lasts for decades. The Dodgers are in Year 13 of their current postseason streak, with five NL pennants and now three World Series titles, but they very well might just be getting started.
“The mainstays that we have in our lineup, that are going to be here for a long time, and just the continuity, the expectation now is this, every single year, and that’s not easy to do,” Kershaw said. “But that’s what everybody expects.”
THE ARGUMENT THAT Kershaw is the greatest Dodger ever is an easy one to make. Certainly, this is subjective, but it’s a proposition with a statistical defense. This isn’t to diminish the impact of legends such as Jackie Robinson, great for ways far beyond what he did on the field, or Sandy Koufax, whose cometlike career ended at age 30 because of injury. That’s just it: Many of the Dodgers’ all-time greats either had short careers or spent a lot of time with other teams.
Here is where the strength of the Dodgers might be best illustrated: For some teams, the loss of a franchise icon can be a little discombobulating because that player is so entwined with the identity of what the franchise has become. With these Dodgers, there’s no such concern.
It’s not to take away one iota from anything that Kershaw has ever done. It’s just that with Ohtani around as one of the most famous athletes on the planet and Betts and Freeman among the best players of their generation as surefire Hall of Famers, the Dodgers have an identity without Kershaw.