After producing the first walkoff grand-slam in World Series history, Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman went on to win Series MVP honors last fall. (Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images)
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Although an old baseball adage says records are made to be broken, this year’s World Series opponents may find them difficult to duplicate.
The Los Angeles Dodgers, after sweeping the Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Championship Series, have already won consecutive pennants for the first time since 1977-78 but have never won consecutive world championships.
The Dodgers, one of eight teams to win at least five World Series, are gunning for No. 9, which would put them into a tie for third place with the Athletics and Cardinals. St. Louis has 11, most of any National League club, while the Yankees lead the majors with 27.
In addition to his team’s success, Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman also has a chance to win consecutive World Series MVP awards – something no player has ever done.
Multiple Trophies
All three of the players with two MVP trophies are long-retired Hall of Famers Reggie Jackson, Bob Gibson, and Sandy Koufax. They could be joined this fall by Toronto outfielder George Springer, who was with the Houston Astros when voted World Series MVP in 2017.
Nine players have been voted Most Valuable Players of both the Championship Series and World Series in the same year but none of them are active in the 2025 Fall Classic.
Johnny Podres won the first World Series MVP award for pitching the Brooklyn Dodgers to their only world championship in 1955. The award has since been rebranded as the Willie Mays World Series MVP award – even though Mays was hardly a stud in the Fall Classic.
In 20 games over four years, he hit just .239 with six runs batted in over 71 at-bats and never hit a home run. But he put an indelible stamp on the Fall Classic with a spectacular catch of a Vic Wertz drive in the 1954 World Series that sent the New York Giants to a surprise sweep of the heavily-favored Cleveland Indians.
Mickey Mantle’s mark of 18 World Series home runs seems safe. (Photo by TPLP/Getty Images)
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Among players participating in 2025, no one is close to threatening Mickey Mantle’s career World Series records for home runs (18), runs scored (42), and total bases (273) or Yogi Berra’s marks for most hits (71 in 295 plate appearances). Berra also has more rings – signifying world championships – than anyone else and has even authored a book called Ten Rings.
Springer’s Pursuit
But if the best-of-seven Series lasts long enough, Springer could challenge his own 2017 record of 29 total bases (34 plate appearances).
Hitting home runs would help; Springer (2017) is one of three players, along with Reggie Jackson (1977) and Chase Utley (2009) to hit five home runs in one World Series.
Single-Series marks for batting average and on-base percentage may also be approachable. Billy Hatcher hit .750 (15 plate appearances) and had an .800 on-base percentage in 1990. Three players, including Jackson, Paul Molitor, and Monte Irvin share the record for scoring the most runs (10) in one World Series, while Marty Barrett, Bobby Richardson, and Lou Brock collected 13 hits each – a record for the existing major leagues before Negro League records were added last year. Now that record (15) belongs to Judy Johnson.
Considering today’s dependence on frequent pitching changes, it may be difficult for anyone to top the career World Series on-base percentage of Barry Bonds (.700) or his slugging percentage of 1.294. Lou Gehrig’s single-Series mark of 1.727, set in 1928, also seems safe. So does his OPS 2.433 OPS, also from that same season.
Freeman, however, could move up the charts in career slugging percentage. He currently sits sixth at .810, compiled over 47 plate appearances with the Braves and Dodgers.
Power Pitcher
The best bet to break a World Series pitching record may be Blake Snell, star left-hander of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
He tops the list of prominent pitchers for strikeouts per nine innings in a single World Series: 16.2 over 10 innings pitched for the Tampa Bays Rays against the Dodgers in 2020. He objected vehemently when pulled in the sixth inning of Game 6, allowing L.A. to win the game and title.
It’s also possible that any reliever could work in all seven games, something done only by Darold Knowles (1973) and Brandon Morrow (2017).
But nobody is about to catch long-time Yankees closer Mariano Rivera, whose 24 games pitched in World Series play is a major-league mark. Whitey Ford, the team’s Hall of Fame starter years earlier, got into 22. Ford also pitched the most innings (146).
One pitching record in reach is games saved. John Wetteland saved all Yankees against the Braves in 1996. Nobody else has more than three saves in one World Series.
Recently-retired Madison Bumgarner has the best World Series earned run average (0.25 over 36 innings pitched) though Christy Mathewson’s 0.97 is also impressive because he pitched so much more often (101.2 innings).
Ford won the most World Series games (10) because his entire career spanned pre–playoffs baseball history when it was easier for a powerful team to advance to the World Series without getting knocked out in three rounds of playoffs. Ford’s Yankees were the only team in baseball history to win five consecutive Fall Classics (1949-53).
More than a half-dozen pitchers, including Ford and Mathewson, posted perfect 0.00 earned run averages in a single World Series, with Mathewson throwing three complete-game shutouts for the 1905 New York Giants.
The World Series record least likely to fall still belongs to Don Larsen, author of the only no-hitter in the history of the event. The journeyman right-hander, who had been sent to the showers early in Game 2, came back to beat the Brooklyn Dodgers for the New York Yankees on Oct. 8, 1956 by a 2-0 score at Yankee Stadium.
Participants in the 2025 World Series are not only playing for pride but for money: the winning share taken home by the victorious Dodgers players last October was $447,441 apiece.