Dodgers: How the league’s strongest division will impact the NL Champs

The Dodgers were unarguably the best team in the National League, not to mention the NL West, in 2017. A return to the postseason this fall seems nearly inevitable, but before they can face their American League counterpart in the World Series, they have to face their own division.

The Dodgers look good, really good. They are charging into the new season as the reigning champions of the National League, but there is no guarantee that the heroics of 2017 will carry over to the spring.

The season starts anew in March.

We learned a lot of things, great things, about the Dodgers in 2017. We learned what they can do, what kind of team they can be when things go right, and we learned how they react when things go wrong.

We also learned this; the NL West has changed. This is not the same division that it was when the Dodgers won their first of five (and counting) consecutive division titles. It used to be that the San Francisco Giants were the Dodgers’ main competition en route to the best record in the West, but times have changed, and so has every team in the division.

Here is how the rest of the West will impact the Dodgers, and the division, in 2018.