Mike Lupica: This is who the Yankees are now

Once, under the great Joe Torre, the Yankees owned October and sometimes November, winning three World Series in a row and four in five years and coming as close as you possibly could to five in six years, before the bottom of the 9th of Game 7 in 2001. That is who they were. Who they are is who they just were against the Dodgers. Famously last winter, Brian Cashman defended his operation by saying it was “pretty —-ing good.” He was telling the truth. His Yankees are just never great when the money is back on the table at this time of year.

Check it out:

In 2002, the Yankees lost the last three games of their division series against the Angels. In 2003, they lost the last three games of the World Series against the Marlins. In 2004, maybe you remember this one, they lost the last four games of the American League Championship Series to the Red Sox. In 2006, they lost the last three games of their division series against the Tigers.

They fell behind the Rangers 1-3 in 2010 and ended up losing in six games. Got swept by the Tigers in the 2012 ALCS. Fell behind the Astros 1-3 in 2019 before losing that ALCS in six. Got swept by the Astros in the ’22 ALCS and nearly got themselves swept by the Dodgers in the World Series that ended a little before midnight on Wednesday night.

This is not to suggest that losing the World Series makes them losers. Of course they’re not, and they absolutely were back in the Series for the first time in 15 years. Only now it is 15 years for them without winning the Series. They also come away from this season knowing that the Mets gave the Dodgers a longer and tougher series than they did.

You will hear now about how the Yankees were ahead in Game 1 until Freddie Freeman – the Yankees could have had him as a free agent but elected to re-sign Anthony Rizzo instead – hit one of the most famous home runs in World Series history, a walk-off grand slam; how they were right there in Games 2 and 3 and obviously were ahead 5-0 in Game 5 before they turned into the Red Sox in the bottom of the 10th against the Mets in the ’86 Series, the Dodgers’ Mookie Betts even being a Mookie who hit a slow roller to first in the middle of all the craziness.

Yeah. They were right there. You hear football teams say that after they lose the Super Bowl to Patrick Mahomes. The Yankees lost this World Series because their opponent was better run, better managed, had done better at the trade deadline.

Was better, period.

The Yankees sure did have the best record in the American League. Did come back the way they did from being 82-80 and missing the postseason entirely last year. But you just saw what happened when they weren’t playing the Kansas City Guardians any longer. There are now Yankee fans in their late 20s who, in their life experience as Yankee fans, have still only seen their team win it all once.

Until further notice, what we just saw, in real time, really is who they are, despite all those winning seasons they’ve had in a row, all those playoff appearances since Cashman began to put his stamp on the Yankees. Still: This is now the 7th time in the last 23 that a Yankee playoff team has lost three games or more in a row in October.

We can talk all day about how clever (sneaky?) the Dodgers were deferring so much of Shohei Ohtani’s $700 million contract. But the fact remains is that the Dodgers just took out both New York teams, one right after another, with a payroll for 2024 that was $76 million lower than the Mets and $68 million lower than the Yankees’. Complain about that all you want, not that anyone will care. But know that in the end, the Dodgers even had better accountants than they had.

“Crazy,” Mookie Betts, who knocked in the Series-winning run with a sacrifice fly. “That’s the definition of the 2024 Dodgers.”

Maybe not so crazy. They spent better, and smarter. The Yankees added Jazz Chisholm, who hit a home run after Judge did in the first inning Wednesday night, at the trade deadline. The Dodgers added Tommy Edman, who ended up being the MVP of the NLCS against the Mets. Even though Michael Kopech got clipped for the home run from Alex Verdugo that made Game 3 look closer than it really was, the Dodgers’ added his big arm at the deadline.

When the Dodgers were still hanging on in the late innings of Game 5, Blake Treinen gave Dave Roberts 2.1 innings, struck out three Yankees in the bottom of the 7th and then pitched through Juan Soto and Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton in the bottom of the 8th without giving up the run that the Yankees so desperately needed to keep their season alive. Not long afterward the Dodgers were spraying champagne at their end of the hall at Yankee Stadium, ending their season that way, as the season of wondering where Soto will play next season had already begun.

“I’m heartbroken,” Aaron Boone, both a good man and a good manager, said when it was over. His best chance at getting across the line with the Yankees was after he hit his bottom-of-the-11th, Game 7 home run against the Red Sox in ’03. Only then the Yankees got rolled by the Marlins across the last three games of that World Series.

We thought that was an aberration at the time, after all the winning we’d seen from Torre’s Yankees. It wasn’t. As far as October was concerned, it was just the beginning. Who the Yankees are now. Pretty —-ing good, year after year after year. Rarely great.