Dodgers manager Dave Roberts praises Shohei Ohtani’s two-way performance in NLDS
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts doesn’t have enough words to express Shohei Ohtani’s ability to both pitch and hit in the NLDS.
sports pulse
The New York Yankees will return home in the winter without winning a World Series title in 16 seasons.th The only outrageous thing is that it’s honestly outrageous.
Yankee fans, please be honest. are you mad?
Are you mad at Aaron Boone for failing again? Yes, this is the guy who lost his ace in March, led his team to a tie for a district title, and kept his team alive in the American League District Series, where no starting pitcher could get past the third inning.
Are you mad that Aaron Judge isn’t a true Yankee yet because he doesn’t have a World Series ring yet? Well, this guy simply hit the best home run in recent playoff history to save the season, giving up 13 hits in 26 postseason at-bats and producing one of the best offensive seasons of all time.
Are you furious that lifelong GM Brian Cashman simply isn’t doing enough, or that owner Hal Steinbrenner isn’t willing to do what it takes to get the Yankees over the top? Well, the latter lined up $750 million for Juan Soto only to watch him fly around town, and the former brilliantly pivoted and reallocated resources to field a championship-worthy club.
Indeed, these are not the days of yore, when no expense was spared, sustainability was a word for losers, and The Boss demanded a level of success that was rarely met.
No, this is 2025. While pinstripes evoke nostalgia and the roar of a modern Yankee Stadium can still intimidate opponents, a different reality has taken hold.
The Yankees are just one of a half-dozen teams trying to win every year, but none are strong enough to bend the fickle postseason odds in their favor.
After losing 3-1 to the Toronto Blue Jays in this American League Division Series, it’s somewhat fitting that the Yankees would go home while the Seattle Mariners are still alive, at least until a decisive Game 5 in the other ALDS.
Mariners GM Jerry Dipoto said that every team’s goal should be to win “54% of the time” after the Mariners miss the playoffs in 2023, sparking significant concern and disgust within the game. So if they win 87.5 games each year, they’ll make the playoffs more often. And maybe sometime this fall, we’ll win the last game of the season with every ball bouncing in the right direction and every deep fly ball not disappearing on the course.
Dipoto was a relentless rip-off, the embodiment of the game’s modern impulse to suck all the passion out of the sport and create a frictionless, sterile pastime.
He apologized profusely, which is kind of funny when you look back on it years later. The Mariners have won between 85 and 90 games every year since 2021 and have a pretty legitimate World Series berth this year.
The Yankees would never admit to such ruthless calculations, but the same concept applies only to the extent of slightly higher taxes. Call them “The 58 Percenters.” They won 94 games in 2024 and 94 games in 2025 with a winning percentage of .580, one district championship, one tie, and a World Series appearance.
With the Blue Jays winning the division in a tiebreaker, the Yankees will advance to the Wild Card Series for the first time. The most generous interpretation is that they had a 1 in 12 chance of winning it all.
Is this a failure worth dwelling on?
Unfortunately for them, they haven’t been able to build a true Death Star like the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Dodgers’ unparalleled draft and development system and deep financial resources have led them to 13 consecutive playoff appearances, two World Series championships, and four National League championships.
That not only makes the Dodgers a regular in October (the Yankees have missed the playoffs four times since winning the World Series in 2009), but it also makes them an incredibly attractive team to outsiders.
They look to repeat as World Series champions, thanks to the trio of Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and possibly Aki Sasaki, who were considered favorites to go to the Dodgers. established fact.
A generation ago, that would have been the Yankees’ domain. But Hal Steinbrenner and his family were never, in a relative sense, looking to throw money around like a boss or like the restless Steve Cohen across town.
So they have to make do with a nearly $320 million roster, one or two permanent holes that must be patched every winter, and the hope that they have enough dry powder in their farm system to replenish by the trade deadline.
The process begins anew. Cody Bellinger is probably a wreck, perhaps finally earning the long-anticipated nine-figure salary. Same goes for Paul Goldschmidt and Devin Williams, both of whom made valuable contributions in their single years in pinstripes.
The big man turns 34 in April, but there are growing rumors about the so-called judge window, which means maintaining his 6-foot-7 frame is a little harder than the average guy.
That’s kind of ridiculous. Judge has many good years ahead of him and is virtually always present in October. This is not the Mike Trout situation, where the greatest player of a generation is trapped in baseball purgatory for more than a decade until his body no longer does the things that made the public thirst for championships on his behalf.
Judge should get a ring at some point, probably next year. Gerrit Cole should be back at some point in the first half, and Lewis Gil has been healthy from the jump, but keeping or replacing Bellinger (err, Kyle Tucker?) remains the biggest upside in the lineup.
The bigger concern may be cleaning up the club’s often-missing fundamentals, such as Jazz Chisholm’s costly mistake in the Game 4 loss, but shortstop Anthony Volpe made big strides on both ends of the season to do just that.
And what if the judges can’t win it all? There was an even worse humiliation in this match. Judge will likely surpass 400 home runs in 2026, and Giancarlo Stanton will approach 500 home runs. The Yankees continue to be a very interesting team in an entertainment-based business.
But it’s also a competitive business with some of the most demanding fans in the industry. Remember, the Dodgers needed 11 straight playoff games to win their first full-season title this season.
The Yankees have made the playoffs eight times in nine years. They’re supposed to be immune to modern trappings like “playoff odds” and “win curves,” but come October they’re no different than the Phillies, Dodgers, Mets, or even the current Blue Jays.
As a Yankee fan, this is certainly disappointing. Just not worth getting angry about.
