This 12 months’s Yankees, who gained three complete playoff video games and didn’t escape the division collection, are higher than the AL champs of 2024.
Final 12 months’s crew acquired a cakewalk to the World Sequence having to face the form of AL Central patsies — Kansas Metropolis and Cleveland — that the Yankees have mauled throughout the Aaron Decide period. The Royals had been underneath .500 final 12 months should you eliminated the 12-1 mark they posted in opposition to the 121-loss White Sox.
This isn’t that daring a press release, actually. The 2017, 2019 and 2022 Yankees additionally had been higher than the 2024 Yankees and every fell brief within the ALCS to the Astros.
And there’s the commonality — it’s in regards to the competitors. Sooner or later, these Yankees face an October opponent that doesn’t wilt at their presence and outplays them. It was within the World Sequence final 12 months and the division collection this season. Giancarlo Stanton, as sage a presence as these Yankees have, famous after elimination that, “The gap you go is de facto the timing and the execution of those video games.”
