Padres Named NL West's Top Team Over Dodgers By National Outlet

The San Diego Padres have the best record in Major League Baseball at 15-4 and lead baseball's best division, the NL West. For that reason, Newsweek Sports' Noah Camras ranked the Friars as the top team in the division.

"The Los Angeles Dodgers won the World Series, and followed it up by being the most aggressive team in free agency, adding Blake Snell, Roki Sasaki, Michael Conforto, Tanner Scott, and Kirby Yates," Camras writes.

"The Dodgers were expected to run away with the NL West, and at least reach the NL Championship Series, if not another World Series. However, three weeks into the season, they're not even the best team in their own division."

Ironically enough, the Padres and Dodgers could not have had more contrary offseasons. The defending champions continued to spend millions by acquiring some of baseball's brightest stars. Meanwhile, the Friars were extremely frugal in their pursuits with payroll restrictions limiting their spending this winter.

The Padres are set to take on their division rivals in June, and the team has made good on their promise about bouncing back in 2025 after an untimely first-round exit in October.

"The two teams don't meet until June, but they appear to be on a crash course to another postseason series," Camras added.

As for whether the Padres are worried about the Dodgers, manager Mike Shildt answered.

“We only take care of what we can control. We think about the Dodgers — you brought it up — we respect it, we compete against them, we compete against everybody. We have 162 games. They’re on the schedule. It’s really about how we compete, how we play and how we carry ourselves and how we take care of our business,” Shildt said.

“We do that and play the game the right way — regardless of opponent we’ll feel good about shaking hands a lot of the times. I don’t want to spend any mental energy on any other club. We’re gonna respect them. We’re gonna prepare like heck for them."

It's evident San Diego isn't worried about the Dodgers, and they shouldn't be with how their playing right now.

For more Padres news, head over to Padres on SI.