Which teams need a World Series most in 2025?

Congratulations to the Los Angeles Dodgers, who won their eighth championship with a 7-6 win over the Yankees on Wednesday night, finishing off a five-game World Series victory.

You can no longer say this current Dodgers dynasty, such as it is, has only won it all after the truncated 2020 season. This ‘24 title is a fitting accomplishment for a team with 10 straight playoff appearances, nine NL West titles and four World Series appearances, but also one that had experienced a lot of October torment.

The Dodgers, like all teams, want to win every year. But they really wanted to win this year. And, they did! The Monkey is off their back!

So, who’s next? Moving forward, which teams find themselves in that Dodgers mode of needing a title ASAP, to justify expenditures, please long-suffering fans or just finally break through after years of falling short?

Here’s a look at the top six teams who need a title the most in 2025.

1. Phillies (Last title: 2008)
2024: 95-67 (Won NL East; lost in NLDS)

The most obvious team on this list. Remember 2023? One year after the Phillies made that surprising run to the World Series, they came back to Citizens Bank Park up 3-2 on the Diamondbacks, needing just one more win to return to the Fall Classic. Remember how they somehow lost both of those games? You only get so many bites of the apple, and this team just missed a perfect opportunity. This past season provided a chance at redemption, but a group that cruised to a division title couldn’t get past the upstart Mets in a short series.

In 2025, it’ll be three years since the Phillies’ World Series appearance, and their stars will be that much older: Bryce Harper will be 33 next October, J.T. Realmuto will be 34, Zack Wheeler 35, even Aaron Nola, Kyle Schwarber and Trea Turner will be 32. That is a ton of older players. Each of their postseason runs the last couple of years have felt like one last battle, one last climb up the hill, for all their grizzled veterans. How many “one last battles” do they get to have? The Phillies need to win the World Series next year. No one needs it more.

2. Yankees (Last title: 2009)
2024: 94-68 (Won AL East; lost in World Series)

Well, except maybe these guys. It was a legitimate achievement for the Yankees to, at last, reach their first World Series in 15 years, especially considering how much pressure was on them to do it this year, specifically: You don’t bring in Juan Soto in his contract year if you’re not aiming high.

But these are still the Yankees: The goal is not just to reach a World Series, it’s to win one. That the Yankees fell just short makes it more urgent for them to get that title, not less. Getting Soto back in pinstripes is the first priority, but the matchup with the Dodgers also exposed how this roster badly needs greater depth, versatility and athleticism. Until the Yankees win that elusive – well, elusive for them – World Series, this project remains very much unfinished.

3. Blue Jays (Last title: 1993)
2024: 74-88 (Missed playoffs)

It might seem a little strange to have a team coming off a last-place finish listed here, but of all the teams in that situation, no one has higher dreams for 2025 than the Blue Jays. This is partly because they still have a lot of talent on their team, but it may be mostly because they really have no other choice. At this year’s Trade Deadline, Toronto resisted the temptation to deal away any of its key pieces for ‘25, even those due to reach free agency after this coming season (looking at you, Vladimir Guerrero Jr.). In doing so, the Blue Jays laid down their marker: They are going to give it one last big swing with this group.

While that might seem awfully ambitious considering they did just finish in last place, you can squint and make an argument for it. The Blue Jays still have the makings of a solid rotation, and Vlad Jr. did look like an MVP candidate again last year. If this goes sideways early, like it did a year ago, you can imagine the Blue Jays punting and trading everybody away. But until that happens, there may be no more all-in team in 2025 than the Jays.

4. Orioles (Last title: 1983)
2024: 91-71 (Lost in Wild Card Series)

The Orioles haven’t won a playoff series since 2014 – they haven’t won a postseason game since 2014, actually – so it might seem a little cart-before-the-horse to start putting title expectations on them. But it seems like maybe it’s about that time. After all, in 2025 we’ll be seven years into the Mike Elias regime. It’ll be three years since this team stopped stacking 100-loss seasons and began winning again.

The Orioles are still loaded with young talent, but young talent has a way of getting older, and more expensive, every year: Adley Rutschman is going to be 27 years old on Opening Day next year, for crying out loud. Not to mention the fact that ace Corbin Burnes and key lineup cog Anthony Santander are free agents. The Orioles are building – have built, actually – something truly impressive in Baltimore, but if they don’t start winning postseason games, fans will lose their patience, if they haven’t already. The Orioles need a truly deep postseason run, and it’s on Elias – now under the ownership of David Rubenstein – to figure out what this roster needs to get there.

5. Padres (Last title: None)
2024: 93-69 (Lost in NLDS)

For three straight seasons, it has felt at one point or another like this might be the year for the Padres – only for those hopes to fizzle. In 2022, they beat the Dodgers in the NLDS, finally vanquishing their bully of a regional rival, but fell to the Phillies in the NLCS. In 2023, they loaded up their roster with stars, hoping to break through at last – and ended up falling on their faces, thanks in large part to a historically bad performance in one-run and extra-inning games. In 2024, sans a couple of those stars, they had the vibes all season only to fall just short to those same Dodgers in the NLDS, after taking a 2-1 series lead.

As fun and inspirational as these Padres have been, eventually you do have to break through and actually get the job done for a franchise still looking for ring No. 1. This is particularly true as the Padres actually start to get a little older: All of their key players save for Jackson Merrill and Fernando Tatis Jr. will be in their 30s next year, and injuries are already creeping in around the margins. And who knows how long they’ll be able to hold up their payroll. This has been a lovely boomlet in San Diego. But if the club doesn’t win a World Series in the next couple of years, when, exactly, is it going to?

6. Guardians (Last title: 1948)
2024:92-69 (Won AL Central; lost in ALCS)

The Guardians looked sort of outmatched in the ALCS against the Yankees, but we all know how the postseason works: If you can get yourself into the tournament, you always have a chance to go all the way. And the 2025 Guardians have some real growth potential, stacked with young hitters you’d expect to be a little better next year. (The 2024 team did not have a single plate appearance taken by a player 32 or older.) José Ramírez, the only Cleveland regular older than 28, continues to put up MVP-level seasons.

The rotation is what has some holes in it, however, and while we’ve come to expect the Guardians to figure out solutions over the last few years, this past season was an example of the limitations of that ability. The rest of the AL Central (White Sox excluded) is starting to rise up as a threat, which only adds to the urgency here: The Guardians might not remain the class of this division much longer. Considering that ever-present, longest-active-title-drought-in-MLB factoid that looms over this franchise, there may be less time to make this happen than we might think. Will they be aggressive – more than they typically are – in trying to seize the moment?