List of National League pennant winners
The National League pennant winner of a given Major League Baseball season is the team that wins the championship—the pennant—of MLB's National League. This team receives the Warren C. Giles Trophy and the right to play in the World Series against the champion of the American League. The current NL pennant winners are the Los Angeles Dodgers, who beat out the Milwaukee Brewers to win the NL pennant in October 2025.
The trophy is named for Warren Giles, the league president from 1951 to 1969, and is presented immediately after each NL Championship Series by Warren's son Bill Giles, the honorary league president and former owner of the Philadelphia Phillies.
From 1876 through 1968, the pennant was awarded to the team with the best regular-season record. Beginning in 1969, the league was divided into East and West divisions, with the champions of each playing for the pennant in the League Championship Series. Since 1995, there have been three divisions and a two-round playoff bracket which begins with two Division Series.
The pennant has been awarded every year since 1876, except for 1994, when a 1994–95 [Major League Baseball strike|players' strike] forced the cancellation of the postseason. Until 1969, the pennant was presented to the team with the best win–loss record at the end of the season. In 1969, the league split into two divisions, and the teams with the best records in each division played one another in the NLCS to determine the pennant winner. The format of the NLCS was changed from a best-of-five to a best-of-seven format for the 1985 postseason. In 1995, an additional playoff series was added when MLB restructured the two divisions in each league into three., the winners of the Eastern, Central, and Western Divisions, as well as one wild card team, play in the NL Division Series, a best-of-five playoff to determine the opponents who will play for the pennant.
By pennants, the Los Angeles Dodgers are the winningest team in NL history. The San Francisco Giants are in second place, with the St. Louis Cardinals, in third place, followed by the Atlanta Braves in fourth place and the Chicago Cubs in fifth. The Philadelphia Phillies were NL champions in back-to-back seasons in 2008 and 2009, becoming the first NL team to do so since the Braves in 1995 and 1996. The Dodgers were also league champions in back-to-back seasons in 2017 and 2018. The modern World Series began in 1903, when the National League recognized the upstart American League, founded in 1901. There was an earlier "World's Championship Series" played between the pennant winners of the NL and the American Association 1884–1890; from 1894 to 1897 the NL's first- and second-place teams played a postseason series for the Temple Cup, which was considered to be the league championship. As of 2021, the Dodgers have the most modern-era World Series appearances at 21, followed by the San Francisco Giants with 20.
The team with the best record to win the NL pennant was the 1906 Cubs, who won 116 of 152 games during that season and finished 20 games ahead of the New York Giants. The best record by a pennant winner in the Championship Series era is 108–54, which was achieved by the Cincinnati Reds in 1975 and the New York Mets in 1986; both of these teams went on to win the World Series.
NL champions have gone on to win the World Series 53 times, most recently in 2025. Pennant winners have also won the Temple Cup and the Chronicle-Telegraph Cup, two pre-World Series league championships, although second-place teams won three of the four Temple Cup meetings. The largest margin of victory for a pennant winner, before the league split into two divisions in 1969, is games; the Pittsburgh Pirates led the Brooklyn Superbas by that margin on the final day of the 1902 season.
The only currently existing National League franchise to have never won an NL pennant are the Milwaukee Brewers; however, they did win a pennant during their time in the American League.
Single table era (1876–1968)
NL pennants won by franchise
| Team | Pennants won | Postseason appearances | Ref |
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 26 | 39 | |
| San Francisco Giants | 23 | 27 | |
| St. Louis Cardinals | 19 | 32 | |
| Atlanta Braves | 18 | 30 | |
| Chicago Cubs | 17 | 21 | |
| Pittsburgh Pirates | 9 | 17 | |
| Cincinnati Reds | 9 | 16 | |
| Philadelphia Phillies | 8 | 17 | |
| New York Mets | 5 | 11 | |
| Baltimore Orioles | 3 | – | |
| San Diego Padres | 2 | 8 | |
| Arizona Diamondbacks | 2 | 7 | |
| Miami Marlins | 2 | 4 | |
| Providence Grays | 2 | – | |
| Houston Astros | 1 | 9 | |
| Washington Nationals | 1 | 6 | |
| Colorado Rockies | 1 | 5 | |
| Detroit Wolverines | 1 | – | |
| Milwaukee Brewers | 0 | 8 |