Dodgers prepare for a rocky road en route to the 2018 World Series

Baseball fans know that a team repeating as World Series Champions, something the Astros will attempt to do in 2018, in incredibly rare, but will the Dodgers be able to win the NL pennant two years in a row?

Once the first Dodger arrives at Camelback Ranch on February 14th, Spring Training officially begins for the reigning NL Champs. Though the impending anxiety of a pennant race is still a few months off, the Dodgers already have the Fall Classic in their sights.

They want redemption. They want to win the World Series, and they want to do it this year.

This year, though, is still wildly unclear. The top two free-agent starters, Yu Darvish and Jake Arrieta, have yet to be signed. J.D Martinez is tired of waiting on the Red Sox, and Eric Hosmer may or may not be headed to San Diego. This isn’t common. Never before have so many free agents been without a team this far into the offseason. It’s hard to predict what the Dodgers will look like, and they’re not the only one. There are a lot of teams that still remain a mystery.

Los Angeles is going to be great. But a beautiful yet often heartbreaking aspect of this game is that, as good as a team is, chances are there’s another team just as talented, and just as determined.

This year the Dodgers will face a rocky road en route to another NL pennant.

Here is what may stand in their way.