Wrap it up! The other 29 Major League Baseball teams can pack up and go home. The New York Yankees will win the 2025 World Series.
That, anyway, is the “way too early” prediction by longtime MLB Network anchor and correspondent Robert Flores.
“I think the Yankees finally get over the hump this year,” Flores said on Tuesday, as quoted by the Bleeding Yankee Blue website. “That’s my way-too-early prediction for 2025.” Is Flores simply riffing, or is this the year that the Yankees who lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 2024 Fall Classic, finally put their 28th championship in the books?
Yankees in Middle of Longest World Series Drought
In the 122 seasons of their existence, including their first 10 from 1903 to 1912 when they were called the New York Highlanders, the Yankees have won the World Series 27 times — more than twice as many as the second-place St. Louis Cardinals with 11, and exactly three times as many their arch-rivals, the Boston Red Sox, who have nine World Series trophies on their proverbial mantlepiece — the third-most titles in MLB.
The Yankees have played in the World Series 41 times. Since divisional play began in 1969, the Bronx Bombers have made an additional 18 playoff appearances without making it to the finale. But last season’s run to the World Series was the first time the Yankees had been there in 15 years. That tied the longest absence since 1921 when the Yankees played in their first World Series.
Since then, only the fallow period from 1981, when the Yankees lost to the Dodgers in a World Series that culminated a strike-shortened season, to 1996 when they beat the Atlanta Braves, equalled the 2009 to 2024 stretch without a Yankees team in the Series.
The longest the Yankees have ever gone without winning a World Series — again, since 1921 — was the 18-year period from 1978 when they defeated the Dodgers four games to two, until 1996.
Oddsmakers See Dodgers as Favorites, Yankees Second
If the Yankees do, in fact, win the World Series as Flores predicts, they’ll miss equaling the length of that drought by two years.
Flores may be predicting that the Yankees win the World Series, but online oddsmakers are not. Most major sports books still favor the 2024 champion Dodgers to repeat, by a considerable margin. As of January 15, ESPN BET favors the Dodgers with a line of +375, meaning that a winning bet of $100 on Los Angeles to win the World Series would pay a profit of $375, returning $475 total. ESPN BET has the Yankees as the next-favored team at +750, odds twice as long as they are willing to give on the Dodgers.
FanDuel also sets the Yankees second, at the same odds of +750. But that sports book gives the Dodgers even better odds that ESPN, at +320. BetMGM also sees the Dodgers at +320, but puts the Yankees at comparatively long odds of +850, tied for second with the +850 Atlanta Braves. The New York Mets, who signed $765 million free agent Juan Soto away from the Yankees, are a close third at +900 in BetMGM odds.
Of course, all betting involves considerable risk and betting lines are not predictions. They simply reflect what the sports books believe gives the best incentive to bettors to collectively wager the same amount of money on both teams.
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Yankees Predicted to Win 2025 World Series by MLB Network Anchor ‘Way Too Early’