Before the season started, the NL West had the potential to be the best division in baseball. Aside from the AL East, there wasn’t a hard decision to choose the champs and there really wasn’t candidate for an upset. While the Dodgers were (and still are) the clear favorites, both previous Wild Card winners looked to contend again.
Depending on how optimistic you were about the Giants, there were still two to three other playoff contenders in the division. The AL East was going to be duel between the Yankees and Red Sox, but the NL West was going to be a battle royale between three good to great teams for wild card spots/a chance at upsetting the Dodgers.