This story was excerpted from Sonja Chen’s Dodgers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
For many of those who watched as late night threatened to become early morning during Game 3 of last year's World Series, it seemed like Will Klein came out of nowhere, fully formed from the sheer need of a Dodgers team down to its last bullpen arm.
Klein became a World Series hero that night. He tossed four gutsy innings on 72 pitches -- the heaviest workload of his professional career, and his longest outing since his college days at Eastern Illinois -- emerging as the winning pitcher of an 18-inning, six-plus-hour marathon.
In a game where Freddie Freeman hit another World Series walk-off homer and Clayton Kershaw made what ended up being the final appearance of his storied career, Klein was the talk of the clubhouse and the baseball world alike. The legendary Sandy Koufax even stopped by afterward to pay his respects.
"Thankfully, Will Klein, MVP of this game, was able to throw more zeros up," Freeman said that night, "and I was able to get up again."
Added Kershaw: “What he did tonight -- above and beyond what anybody can expect of somebody that’s literally never done that before.”
While Klein turned himself into a household name in the span of four innings, it was his journey to get to that point that forged him. After playing for four organizations in the past two years, the 26-year-old right-hander learned how to stay grounded amid the uncertainty in his life -- and that set him up to thrive on baseball's biggest stage.
"The most important thing I've gotten out of this," Klein said, "is when I leave the field at the end of the day, I'm not a baseball player to Carson, my wife, or my cats. … Obviously, the last year has been all over the place, but there's a lot of doubt and are-you-good-enough kind of thoughts that happen with those things.
"But the most important part is staying true to yourself and getting through that. When I got here, they really helped."
Klein debuted in 2024 with the Royals, the team that drafted him in the fifth round in 2020, but his journey took a turn beyond what rising big leaguers hope for. He was traded to the A's a few months later -- which wasn't necessarily a bad landing spot for a young reliever looking to prove himself -- but only made three appearances for them before being optioned to Triple-A Las Vegas, where an injury ended his season.
Klein was designated for assignment by the A's in January 2025, traded to the Mariners the same week, then designated for assignment again in May. At that point, the Dodgers picked him up, and they began working to unlock his full potential.
The Dodgers' message to Klein was twofold: throw more strikes, and trust your stuff. He had heard the former from his previous organizations, but the latter especially helped to transform his mentality when facing hitters. L.A. also had Klein ditch his old gyro slider in favor of a sweeper and continue throwing the cutter that he had picked up with Seattle.
"I think the Dodgers just really allow you to be who you are," Klein said. "A lot of other teams are maybe like cookie-cutter in their programs or know what they want from guys, but here … you see a lot of different kinds of pitchers, and they let you do what you're exceptional at."
Klein made only 14 regular-season appearances for the Dodgers, striking out 21 and walking 10 in 15 1/3 innings. When the postseason came around, the team kept him active at Camelback Ranch, throwing live sessions alongside other pitchers in case the big league club needed reinforcements.
And in the end, he was needed: Klein flew to Toronto with the Dodgers to start the World Series, believing he was on the taxi squad, then found out on the eve of Game 1 that he would be on the roster. It made the repetitiveness of facing the same hitters throughout October worth it. Once he was under the lights, Klein rose to the occasion. He tossed a scoreless inning in Game 1, his World Series debut, before his now-legendary performance in Game 3.
Since then, manager Dave Roberts has seen Klein build off of that big outing that helped the Dodgers become back-to-back champions. Despite his heroics, Klein did not come into spring with a guaranteed spot in the bullpen, but he has a good opportunity to carve out a role in this year's three-peat bid as Opening Day draws near.
"I’ve already seen the confidence in Will versus last year when we traded for him," Roberts said, "and he was unsure of himself, where now he has the respect of his teammates, and he’s done it in the highest of leverage. You can’t manufacture that. You’ve got to live it and do it."
And that's just what Klein did over a tumultuous year, and not only on the mound, leading into the night when he entered Dodger Stadium as an unheralded arm and left as an unlikely hero.