BRONX, NY — The days of a top-heavy lineup willing a team to a World Series title are over. That notion has been debunked for quite some time, yet the Yankees are going to that very same well despite it being dried up.
In as winnable an American League as ever, the Yankees’ fearsome trio of Juan Soto, Giancarlo Stanton, and the struggling Aaron Judge were enough to get them past the Kansas City Royals in the ALDS and the Cleveland Guardians in the ALCS — two teams that do not strike the same sort of fear as the team that has taken it to them in the World Series, the Los Angeles Dodgers.
But against a team rife with dependable pitching options and composed bats that control the strike zone to neutralize what might have been New York’s only advantage this series, the starting pitching, has exposed the gulf in class between the Bronx Bombers and a team that truly has what it takes to win the World Series.
Depth is important. As elementary of a statement as that is, it is something the Yankees have seemingly ignored in their roster construction.
With Judge continuing to build a dubious reputation as one of the worst postseason hitters ever — he is batting .196 in 56 career postseason games and .140 with two home runs this October — good teams, winning teams can pitch around Soto and Stanton because the bottom of the lineup is a black hole.
Jazz Chisholm, Austin Well, and Alex Verdugo are all batting under .200. Only four players with at least 10 at-bats this postseason (Stanton, Soto, Anthony Rizzo, and Gleyber Torres) have an OPS over .700.
It has made the lineup predictable and easily navigatable, especially against a pitching-rich team like the Dodgers, who held them to just seven runs in the first three games of the World Series.
While pleas to shake up the lineup grow louder, Boone does not have anything else to work with, at least by his calculations — a clear indictment of the lack of reliable depth accrued by general manager Brian Cashman.
“The way we’re set up, we’re not really built to really have that pinch hit or platoon,” Boone said. “Jon Berti was kind of the right-handed option with the lefties, but that has kind of gone away [after injuring his hip flexor]. That’s just part of who we are and where we’re at in the season… There’s not a lot with our group that I’m hitting for guys in certain situations.”
It has set the Yankees up to fail against a Dodgers team that has gotten production out of every corner of the lineup.
With Shohei Ohtani battling a dislocated shoulder that he is clearly hampered by, Los Angeles is still finding ways to produce. Enrique Hernandez, a fixture at the bottom-third of the lineup, is batting .300. Ninth-place hitter Tommy Edman is batting .364 with three extra-base hits to build off his NLCS MVP showing against the Mets.
There is support and table-setting opportunities for the big bats like Freddie Freeman, who on one good ankle, has as many RBI as the Yankees had through the first three games of the Fall Classic.
In total, six Dodgers recorded an extra-base hit this series and three had four hits through three games. Stanton was the only Yankee with as many hits.
It is a clinic on how to construct a winning ballclub. It is a lesson that Cashman needs to take into consideration heading into next season, which adds another wrinkle into what will be a pivotal winter.
The focus will be on the Yankees’ quest to retain Juan Soto and sign him to a long-term deal. But how would a hypothetical mega contract hamstring the front office when trying to find the correct depth pieces needed to make a lineup go from imposing at its heart to a relentless unit from spots one through nine.
