The Dodgers will play in a World Series.

That was harder than we thought it would be.

From 1941 through 1988, the Dodgers were National League champions 16 times in 48 seasons. On average, they were in the World Series every third year, during that era, when they also won the World Series six times.

From 1989 through 2016, the Dodgers were National League champions zero times in 28 seasons.

During that stretch, the club was owned by four entities — the O’Malley family, Fox Entertainment, Frank McCourt and the Guggenheim group — and none seemed up to the task of replicating what the O’Malleys had done through 1988. Beginning with Peter O’Malley who realized/decided that his family did not have the financial resources to compete in the free-agent market.

And now all that is over. All it took was the Guggenheim people spending crazy amounts of money over the past three seasons, and a statistics-driven strategy that called on the club building a 40-deep pool of competent players. That, and utilityman Kike Hernandez hitting three home runs in the 11-1 clincher in Chicago.

(And, just saying, but did anyone notice that had the 2017 baseball been just a smidgen less electric all three of Hernandez’s big flies, each of which barely crawled over the fence, would have been caught?)

So. The 40-deep plan gave the Dodgers flexibility to address injuries and slumps with competent players who, at the moment, were down in the minor leagues.

The 10-day disabled list, which came into effect this season, allowed for even greater flexibility, especially with starting pitchers, who could be shelved for 10 days and miss only one turn. And for relievers, who went up and down as their effectiveness rose or fell.

Now, the players are saying a championship is the next required step, and indeed it is, but those of us scarred by the 28 seasons between Fall Classics tend to believe that just getting there is OK, for now.

Winning would be gravy.

Now we wait for the New York Yankees and Houston Astros to provide the second World Series team. It would be nice if the Dodgers could cap their greatest season (in terms of wins and losses: 104-58) with a championship, but let’s not get greedy.