With less than a month to go in the 2022 MLB regular season, the Los Angeles Dodgers are again the favorites to win the World Series — and understandably so.
Dave Roberts’ squad became the first MLB team of 2022 to hit the 100-win mark. Los Angeles won 106 games a year ago but had to settle for a wild card berth thanks to the San Francisco Giants’ unexpected renaissance (107 wins). They currently have 106 wins this season, and with nine games yet to play, they should end the season with 110 or more wins.
2022 marks the fourth time the Dodgers have hit 100 regular season wins since 2017; they won 92 contests in 2018 (reaching the World Series) and finished with a 43-17 record in the shortened 60-game 2020 campaign.
The Dodgers essentially have home-field advantage throughout the 2022 postseason locked up. They’ll get one of the two first-round byes in the National League, with the winner of the NL East (between the Atlanta Braves and New York Mets) likely earning the other.
The Golden State is looking at two measures called “Prop 26” and “Prop 27”, which would legalize a form of California Sports betting. As noted by ABC 7 News, Prop 26 would permit residents of California to place in-person wagers at four different horse racing tracks and tribal casinos. Prop 27, put simply, would allow Californians to place sports wagers online.
LA is the favorite to win the 2022 World Series at most major sportsbooks, including FanDuel (+320) and DraftKings (+360). The Houston Astros, who’ve reached three of the last five Fall Classics, are behind the Dodgers at +410 and +425 at FanDuel and DraftKings, respectively.
Dodgers Don’t Have Any Real Weaknesses
The Dodgers have been baseball’s most consistent regular season team over the past ten years, so it’s tough to comprehend how they have just one World Series championship with this star-studded core. But regardless of their final regular season record, the 2022 squad is arguably the best Roberts has overseen. Even without ace pitcher Walker Buehler for most of the year (he’s done for the year with elbow surgery) and even with Clayton Kershaw missing ample time, LA boasts baseball’s best pitching staff by a country mile.
Last year’s Dodgers got within two games of reaching the World Series, and they didn’t even have Freddie Freeman on the roster at the time. And though LA boasted a far better record than Atlanta, the Braves got a home advantage for the NLCS because they were a division winner.
But home advantage belongs to the Dodgers throughout October. If a lineup consisting of Mookie Betts, Trea Turner, Gavin Lux, and Justin Turner wasn’t scary enough to deal with, opposing pitchers now have to deal with a future Hall of Fame slugger in Freeman.
Freeman has a slight lead over St. Louis Cardinals slugger Paul Goldschmidt for the NL batting title. The former Braves star is also among the foremost NL leaders in RBI, OPS, slugging percentage, and On-Base Percentage.
The Dodgers’ lineup is stacked from top to bottom. Unlike other contenders such as the New York Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays, the Dodgers don’t rely as much on the home run ball. They can quickly rack up the runs by playing small-ball, drawing walks, and piling up the singles.
With the league’s best pitching staff and arguably the game’s most balanced lineup, it’s impossible to find a legitimate weakness that could cost the Dodgers in October. It’s about executing in October the way they have from April to the present.
Most of the 2020 World Series championship team core remains in place. But it still feels like these 2022 Dodgers are playing with a chip on their shoulder.
When you have a team that’s as stacked as the Dodgers, one World Series championship just doesn’t feel like enough. The ‘90s Atlanta Braves reached the Fall Classic five times in the decade but won it all on just one occasion (1995). That group is regarded as a dynasty that never was.
This era’s Dodgers are too stacked across the board to come away with just one world championship together. Their lone World Series came in a heavily shortened 2020 season. Now it’s time to add one more to the trophy room.
