'We're here now': How the Yankees finally reached the summit again

CLEVELAND — Here’s the résumé of one era for a certain big league baseball team.

It’s a 14-year period. The team had a .566 winning percentage during that span, most in its league and second most overall. It never finished below .500. It had the second-most wins at home and on the road. No team had more comeback wins. Only one team scored more runs, and only one had a better run differential. Nobody hit more home runs, and it wasn’t particularly close.

Of course, that’s all regular-season stuff — what about the playoffs? The answers aren’t as glowing, but they are still impressive. Only three teams played more postseason games. Only five won more postseason games. Only two teams hit more homers.

These are all facts from the New York Yankees‘ pennant drought, the period from 2010 through 2023, which finally drew to a close Saturday night. The drought — a descriptor some woebegone franchises would dispute — ended thanks to one mighty swing by Juan Soto that punctuated one of his signature meat grinder at-bats. The Yankees are back, returned to the pedestal where their fans have a historical justification for feeling they belong: on top of the American League.

“It’s been a conversation every year,” ALCS MVP Giancarlo Stanton said. “We’re here now.”

The level of success outlined above would be impressive for pretty much every franchise, even if no fan base is ever going to be completely satisfied without the payoff of pennants and World Series titles. But for denizens of the Bronx, flags are the only currency that may be redeemed for respect or validation. Such are the standards of a franchise and fan base that has now celebrated 41 pennants and is four wins from a 28th championship.

Saturday’s win over Cleveland ended a streak of five losses in the ALCS during the drought, the last two of which came during the seven-year tenure of current manager Aaron Boone. The other three came under Joe Girardi, who is the only other skipper New York has had during the drought.

Meanwhile, the guy running the front office, Brian Cashman, has been around so long he might have been the guy who traded for Babe Ruth.

“I’m proud of these guys,” Cashman said amid the melee of the postgame trophy presentation. “And proud we have earned the right to go to the World Series.”

Behind Boone, and Girardi before him, and the even-present Cashman, not to mention ownership by the same family dating back to 1973, the Yankees, even during one of their dark ages, have been remarkably stable. It’s not like there was a major top-to-bottom housecleaning somewhere along the line.

What, then, is different about this bunch, the 2024 Bronx Bombers, that after so many recent October disappointments allowed them to finally break through on Saturday?

The Soto-Judge stack

Through the regular season, Aaron Judge enjoyed one of the best offensive performances in baseball history But, incredible as it is to say, he has done this before. He has also struggled all October, to much hand-wringing and widespread theorizing. Yet you could argue that even as he’s slumped, Judge has remained a fearsome presence in the New York lineup, and he has been able to do that because he’s got Soto hitting in front of him.

The most tangible way to illustrate this is to simply point out that Judge hit 353 times with at least runner on base this season, second most in baseball behind Atlanta’s Matt Olson. Judge drove in a career-high 144 runs this season — a product of his level of play, yes, but also because he was always hitting with someone on base. Often it was Soto, who chewed the opposing pitcher the same way he did Cleveland’s Hunter Gaddis on Saturday.

“I’m just telling myself, ‘I’m all over every pitch, I’m all over every pitch,'” Soto said of his pennant-winning blast. “So be ready. Be ready. He’s going to make the mistake. He did. And I did get it.”

Soto took the spoils Saturday but often, he’s just taking a walk — 129 of them during the season — to set the table for Judge and those behind him. Judge had an astronomical 1.237 OPS this season when hitting with at least one runner on.

The Soto-Judge stack, by some measures the most productive one-two single-season duo since the days of Ruth and Lou Gehrig, is a wearying prospect for every pitching staff to navigate four or five times a game, even if one of them (Judge in this case) isn’t hitting that well.

“He wears pitchers down,” Stanton said of Soto. “It doesn’t matter if he gets out. The stress of getting him out, then you gotta deal with Judge … then you gotta deal with everyone behind them.”

The runs created metric had Judge at 183, Soto at 147. The Yankees haven’t had two hitters top 140 in the same season since Jeter and Williams back in 1999. That is the single biggest difference between the Yankee teams of the past 14 seasons and this one. In other recent years, they’ve had one mega hitter — but not two.

Stanton, for one, knew what the effect would be as soon as he heard that Soto was going to be his new teammate.

“I figured he was going to do something like he did tonight,” Stanton said. “And in pure Juan Soto fashion.”

The Stanton-Torres wraparound

Stanton has had his ups and downs since coming to the Yankees, but he’s often been at his best in October — and this October might be his best one yet. His four homers against Cleveland landed him that MVP award. He has five overall in the 2024 playoffs, one shy of the Yankees’ record. And only three Yankees have hit more playoff homers for the franchise: Bernie Williams, Derek Jeter and (gulp) Mickey Mantle.

“There’s the physical nature of what he does that’s different than just about everyone in the world,” Boone said Sunday before Stanton went out and homered yet again. “He’s just incredibly disciplined — his approach, his process, how he studies guys.”

Stanton doesn’t always hit cleanup, as Boone likes to get a lefty bat between Judge and Stanton most times. But this, too, ties into the Soto-Judge stack because when Stanton is hitting, and batting cleanup like he was on Saturday, those worn-down pitchers have got to feel the life being sucked out of them.

This also puts extra onus on getting out the batter who precedes all of this, Gleyber Torres. That hasn’t happened consistently this October. In fact, Torres has reached base in his first at-bat eight times during this postseason, a Yankees record. All of a sudden, there’s a runner on base, and here comes the smiling, nodding Soto striding to the dish.

“A lot of times for starting pitchers, maybe it takes them a hit or two to settle in,” Cleveland manager Stephen Vogt said. “And those are two guys you can’t settle in against.”

The Yankees didn’t light up the scoreboard getting through the AL bracket, but no one did. Runs were just very tough to come by in general. New York averaged 4.78 runs per game to lead the six AL postseason entrants, a group that otherwise averaged just 2.93. Through that prism, the Yankees’ offense was dominant — even without Judge putting up big numbers.

The scary question for whoever comes next for the Yankees — whether it’s the New York Mets or the Los Angeles Dodgers: What happens if Judge starts hitting, too?

The Astros are out

We won’t expand on this because there’s not much to say beyond pointing it out. But the Yankees’ last three ALCS losses — 2017, 2019, 2022 — all came at the hand of the Houston Astros, who were knocked out in the wild-card round this season by Detroit. New York might have beaten Houston this time around, anyway, and it’s fair to wonder if the ship has sailed on the Astros dynasty. But the fact remains: The biggest impediment to the World Series for the Yankees in recent years was not around this time to get in their way.

Patience

The tension is thicker in October. The moments are more intense, the crowds larger, the consequences of every win or loss exaggerated. You might think that from a hitter’s perspective, that might lead to a little overaggression. Not for these Yankees.

New York drew just one walk during its clincher in Cleveland but has walked in 13.9% of its plate appearances this October. That’s more than any other playoff team this season and more than all but five of the 512 playoff teams in baseball history.

Plate discipline has been a hallmark of Cashman-constructed teams, and the Yankees also led the majors in drawing walks during the season. In October, they’ve taken it to another level.

“They’re a very tough lineup to navigate because of that,” Vogt said. “You have to come into the zone and you have to get them out in the zone, and they’re all very good hitters.”

An infusion of youth

The Yankees, at their most decadent, have featured too many high-dollar players on the wrong side of 30 with big names and shrinking athleticism. This has been the case for decades. But the Yankees’ position group has been getting younger the past couple of years, from a playing time-weighted age of 30.3 in 2022, per baseball-reference.com, to 28.5 last season and 28.0 this season.

Necessity has been part of this due to injuries to older stars such as Anthony Rizzo and DJ LeMahieu. But New York has gotten meaningful contributions from young players on the hitting and pitching side alike. Game 4 featured an all-rookie battery — righty Luis Gil and catcher Austin Wells, both leading AL Rookie of the Year candidates.

The shortstop, Anthony Volpe, just completed his second season and was nominated for what would be his second straight Gold Glove. He has improved his consistency at the plate as well, though he has plenty of work to do in that regard. He has a .459 OBP during the postseason.

The Yankees are still a star-driven team, but they have better balance in the clubhouse. Going back through the history of baseball’s most successful franchise, that’s usually been the case when they win big.

“We’ve had some great groups, some great camaraderie, some great clubhouses,” Boone said. “This group is as close as I’ve ever seen, and they trust each other. They lean on each other. They love each other. They play for each other. Those are special things to have in a team sport.”

This team has won big so far, but the ultimate goal hasn’t yet been achieved. And that goal — in the Bronx — is really one that matters, the one that will truly quench this drought.

“To get there doesn’t mean much,” Stanton said. “We need to win it.”