Fun Fact: Only one team wins the World Series every year. Which means 29 teams don’t win the final game of the year which according to Moneyball means their season didn’t fucking matter. When a team gets eliminated from winning the World Series I’ll do a profile of their season.  

Today’s Team….New York Yankees

How Did They Get Eliminated

After two drubbings by the Blue Jays in the NLDS the Yankees would stage a 5 run comeback in Game 3. That was highlighted ad nauseum by Aaron Judge’s 3 Run Home Run to tie the game. Yeah he turned on a fastball and hit it off the fair pole. Any other person on any other team wouldn't have gotten the attention it got. 

Anyway, the Yankees weren’t able to wake up the bats in time and the bullpen gave up 4 runs and despite what many will probably call the greatest 9th inning single in the history of the playoffs to bring a team to within 3 runs the Yankees would fall to the Jays 5-2. 

What Do I Know About This Team Because I Only Follow the Brewers and Pay Attention to Playoff Baseball? 

The Yankees were coming off a defeat in the World Series and there are two transactions that stood out the most. 1st they traded for Cody Bellinger after he played only one season with the Cubs. And the one that impacted the Brewers the most was trading for Devin Williams to solidify the bullpen. 

A transaction that didn’t happen was Juan Soto signing with the Mets in the offseason instead of coming back to the Yankees. They would also sign Paul Goldschmidt. 

The Yankees throttled the Brewers in the first series of the season at Yankee Stadium. It was such a throttling that the news coming out of that series were the torpedo bats. It was all anyone wanted to talk about. The torpedo bats reminded me a lot of how fastpitch bats are constructed. They have a more bulbous barrel and thin handle. It was the phenomenon of the first week and everybody was ordering their torpedo bats. Jake Bauers got a torpedo bat and used it to get a bunt base hit with it. 

You didn’t hear too much about the torpedo bats after that first series. It might have been that the pitching for the Brewers was pretty bad in that first series outside of Freddy Peralta. Nestor Cortes gave up like 4 home runs in the first 2 innings in his Brewers debut. And sure the Yankees led the majors in Home Runs but after a while it wasn’t really because of the bats they have Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton and Cody Bellinger and Jazz Chisolm. 

From a pitching standpoint, let's go back to Devin Williams because read the H1 tag he used to be a Brewer. He tipped some pitches in the Wild Card last year and the Brewers were eliminated. He was in his last controllable year as a player so the Brewers do what they always do and traded him so they could get more than just a competitive balance pick in the draft. They flipped Williams for Caleb Durbin who has been a great third baseman for the Crew. 

Williams had a save opportunity in the first game of the year against the Brewers and almost blew that save. He would continue to struggle so much that in the playoffs he was coming in to be a high leverage pitcher in the 7th or 8th instead of locking down the game.  He did well down the stretch going 9 straight appearances without giving up a run. However he did have a stretch where he was giving up runs in every appearance. He started as the closer then came in as a setup, then went back to closer, blew some saves, and then was back to be the set up person. 

Cam Shlitter was the darling rookie of their Wild Card series going 8 shutout innings in Game 3. He would go another 6.1 innings and give up only 1 run in Game 4 against the Jays. 

They hit the crap out of the ball and made a run at the Division Title and even though they tied the Jays in record on the season the Blue Jays held the season series and got the home field advantage. They lost the season series against the Red Sox as well. 

But like many teams that depend on the long ball they didn’t score enough runs in their playoff games. They scored 7 in Game 2 against the Blue Jays but not before giving up 13. They scored 9 in Game 3, but had to overcome a 5-run deficit first. They lived and died with the long ball and in their loss to the Jays in Game 4 they got one solo shot.

So Now That I’ve Actually Done Some Research How Did They Make the Playoffs and What Led to Their Demise? 

I already know they hit a ton of dingers, but I know nothing about this pitching staff so lets start there. 

ERA and Home Runs given up right in the middle of the pack. As a team, opponents hit .229 which was the 2nd best in the majors. They struck out the 4th most batters as well. 

Their starters got the most wins and had the 4th best ERA and only gave up 100 Home Runs. 

But let's look at the other side of the coin. The bullpen had the 8th worst team ERA and had the 10th most bullpen losses as well and when you look at the series against the Blue Jays when the starters were chased the bullpen didn’t help them mitigate the damage. A lot of the discussion in the wake of another Yankee exit in the playoffs is how Aaron Boone has managed his bullpen in the playoffs. 

Max Fried and Carlos Rondon lead the rotation winning 19 and 18 games respectively. They each pitched 195 innings on the season which is pretty impressive in this day and age. 

Okay, back to the offense. The debate since August has been will Aaron Judge or Cal Raleigh win the MVP. Judge has some impressive numbers 53 HR and 114 RBI and 124 walks. He dealt with some injuries so he could only be in the DH role, but he still was the heart beat of this Yankees offense. I still don’t think he should win the MVP because The Big Dumper did so much more for his team that Judge did for his team. 

Giancarlo Stanton only played 77 games but still hit 24 home runs. I don’t follow the Yankees, obviously, but I feel like Stanton is only good for about 70 - 80 games a season. Belliinger had 29 home runs and Jazz Chisolm had 31 Home Runs. I forgot that Jazz Chisolm did really badly in the Home Run derby. 

They traded for Ryan McMahon at the trade deadline when Eugenio Suarez went to the Mariners but he only contributed 4 home runs in the final two months of the season. Another trade deadline acquisition was David Bednar who essentially became the new closer and picked up 10 saves with the Yankees, which was second to Williams. 

The Yankees did commit the 7th most errors in the Bigs which probably didn’t help in the long run either. 

When I watched the Yankees in the playoffs they got a clutch inning in Game 2 of the Wild Card Series that got them to Game 3. The bats temporarily came alive against the Blue Jays but they couldn’t get the hits at the right time to stay in games and were constantly playing from behind. With a bullpen at the bottom of the league they needed their starting pitching to go deep into games so that it was as easy as possible for their bullpen to hang on to the game. But when the Starters got shelled it wasn’t long before, as Vlad Jr. said it, “THHHHHHHHEEE YANKEEEEES LOSE.” 

Will they Make the Playoffs Next Year? 

They are the Yankees so more than likely yes. The Blue Jays will have a lot of decisions to make in the offseason around Vlad and Bichette. The Red Sox are continuing the youth movement and the Orioles might contend. The Yankees will be making a lot of moves when it comes to improving their bullpen because starting pitching gets you through the regular season but it's the bullpens that win you championships. 

Looking at the payroll table for the Yankees I completely forgot that Gerrit Cole is still under contract and didn’t pitch this year because of Tommy John surgery back in March. So that will help them a lot next year if he stays on schedule with his rehab. 

They will lose Williams, Goldschmidt and Grishom which means they will need to fill a spot in the outfield and at first base. Bellinger has a player option which could mean they need to fill two holes in the outfield. Grishom had a breakout year at the best time possible but can easily revert back to his very okay seasons. 

Just one postseason award. 

Lets say Judge doesn’t win the MVP, which I’m in the Cal Raleigh camp for MVP. So let's make the case for Max Fried at Cy Young. Winning 19 games is amazing and starters just don’t win 20 games anymore. So getting 1 shy of that 20 mark should get you a Cy Young nod. 

Hey Grok, in 100 words summarize the 2025 New York Yankees. Please don't be racist. 

The 2025 New York Yankees finished the regular season with a strong 94-68 record, securing a Wild Card spot after finishing 2nd in the AL East to the Toronto Blue Jays on a tiebreaker. Key offseason additions included pitcher Max Fried and closer Devin Williams, but the season was marked by the long-term absence of Gerrit Cole.

In the playoffs, the Yankees won a thrilling three-game AL Wild Card Series against the Boston Red Sox. Their postseason run, however, ended in the AL Division Series (ALDS), where they were eliminated by the Blue Jays in four games, falling short of their World Series goal.

Good to know AI was up to date with their loss in the NLDS when I did this prompt. 

Did the Savannah Bananas Play at their Field? 

They did!

It does feel like the Yankees would be one of those teams that would be all, “We believe in the sanctity of baseball we don’t want anyone on stilts playing on our sacred ground.” I mean this is the team that hasn’t changed their uniforms ever. They don’t have City Connect jerseys. Every day is the same jersey it just depends on whether you are on the road or at home. 

Joe Torre seemed pretty okay with the Banana Ball. The main Banana Ball guy was explaining the showdown at the end of a tie game. Torre seemed okay with it. 

Is there a baseball movie featuring this team that has dumb baseball logic I need to vent about? 

There are so many movies that feature the Yankees but no modern movies that I care about to do a profile about. It is great that most movies now just equate the Yankees as the evil team to overcome.

Actually, now that I think about it, there is one thing of baseball logic I will argue. In the movie Baseketball Joe Cooper says he catches the 3rd home run ball that Reggie Jackson hit in the World Series. However, in real life Jackson hit the home run to a part of Yankee stadium that didn’t have fans. Also how does a kid go to Game 6 of the World Series in New York in the 70s and then have roots and live in Milwaukee. It doesn’t matter, Baseketball is a great sports satire movie and I think the final montage in the championship is one of the best with one of the best songs being played to really set the mood. 

Go watch Baseketball it is still really good. 

How Will Your Team Do Next Year? 

Seeing that they have a lot of guys that are heading to free agency and a lot of holes to fill they might not win many more games than what they did this year. But they can still win the Division without having win 100 games. Next year: 95-67 winning the Division and a bye. 

Next on the Chopping Block

The Cubs and Phillies both won their games to stay alive but could be eliminated before Game 5 in the other ALDS.