Yankees vs. Dodgers: World Series Preview

Somehow, this happened: The New York Yankees, a team that I really had very little faith in for so long during the 2024 season - for many reasons - won their 41st American League pennant, and will now play for their 28th World Series title. They will have to beat the best team in MLB, the Los Angeles Dodgers, to do it. Here’s my preview of the 12th matchup between these franchises with the championship on the line.

There was a time in Major League Baseball when America simply expected this to happen. The Yankees and Dodgers playing in the World Series.

In the 16 years between 1941 and 1956 - which I missed, but I know some of you like my 88-year-old dad were alive for - they met seven times in the Fall Classic, the original Subway Series, with the Dodgers calling Brooklyn home, and the Yankees dominated the rivalry, winning six times. The only defeat coming in 1955, and it still took seven games and a brilliant Johnny Podres 2-0 shutout before Dodgers fans no longer had to “wait ‘til next year.”

Then Peter O’Malley jilted Brooklyn for Los Angeles, and a subway ride was no longer gonna cut it when the teams met in the World Series in 1963, 1977, 1978 and 1981, the Yankees winning the middle two titles, giving them an 8-3 all-time advantage before first pitch Friday night at Dodger Stadium.

It seems a little hard to believe that two of the most storied franchises in history, in the two biggest media markets, with annually the biggest payrolls, have not played in October since 1981. That was the year of Fernando Valenzeula (who just passed away Tuesday) and the birth of Fernando Mania, the split MLB season due to a greedy players’ strike, and a year when impetuous George Steinbrenner fired manager Gene Michael in early September - even though the Yankees had won the first-half crown and thus clinched a playoff berth - and replaced him with Bob Lemon.

Lemon had come on in relief of Billy Martin who quit midway through 1978, and Lemon helped the Yankees climb out of a 14-game deficit to win the AL East, and they eventually defeated the Dodgers in the World Series. Alas, Lemon couldn’t pull off the same Houdini magic and Los Angeles won the 1981 title in six games.

OK, I could go on and on and on about Yankees-Dodgers history, but my point is, Yankees-Dodgers just “feels” like a proper World Series, and in 2024, it certainly is by the raw numbers.

Indeed, these were the best two teams record-wise in MLB, the Yankees going 94-68, the Dodgers 98-64. But Los Angeles has certainly had a more difficult path to this moment as it was down two games to one to arch-rival San Diego in the divisional series before rallying to win the last two, and it took six games to dispatch the Mets, who were the best team in MLB over the final three months and at several points in October felt like a team of destiny.

So, now what?

Ladies and gentlemen, the Dodgers are a wagon. They are considered the favorite and rightly so. Do the Yankees have a chance to pull an upset? Yes. And wow, how often does anyone type that sentence: Do the Yankees have a chance to pull an upset? However, that’s the reality here. They are the second-best team in this series and they’re going to need to play a much cleaner brand of baseball if they hope to raise championship banner No. 28 next spring.

In the five-game defeat of Cleveland in the ALCS, in addition to running the bases like drunks, and making several fielding mistakes, the Yankees overcame those issues by hitting .250 as a team and scoring 29 runs which was impressive. But that mark drops to a woeful .189 with runners in scoring position and they are not going to beat the Dodgers if they don’t manufacture runs. Of their 29 runs, 17 came via home runs, two came thanks to Guardians errors, two more scored on wild pitches, and three on sacrifice flies. Do the math: The Yankees scored just five runs with RBI hits that weren’t homers.

I’m not decrying home runs because they’re the most important thing, and against the Guardians they came at epic moments, so they will need those, too against Los Angeles, but they have to hit better, period. The Dodgers just set an NLCS record by scoring 46 runs, and they didn’t even need a seventh game. They hit .268 against the Mets with an OPS of .854 and they had four players - Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Tommy Edman and Max Muncy - who posted OPS’ above 1.000. Insane.

The top three in their order - Ohtani, Betts and Freddie Freeman - is unmatched in MLB, though Freeman is battling an ankle injury and has played far below his capability. With some extra time to rest, we’ll see what they get from him but when he’s healthy, he’s awesome. From 2018 to 2023 he led MLB four times in doubles including 59 among 211 hits in 2023. This year, he missed 15 games and his numbers declined at age 34, but he’s still a problem.

Do I really need to say anything about Ohtani? He became the first player in history to have a 50-50 season with 54 homers, 59 stolen bases, and he led the NL in homers, plate appearances (731), runs scored (134), RBI (130), on-base (.390), slugging (.646) and OPS (1.036). And now in his first postseason after he changed addresses in Southern California and bolted the Angels for the Dodgers, he’s rising to the occasion with three homers, 10 RBI and a .934 OPS through the first 11 postseason games.

Yankees fans are all too familiar with Betts, even though he was traded by the Red Sox (thankfully) to Los Angeles after the 2019 season. All he’s done in five years with LA is slash .284/.372/.530 for an OPS of .902. In this postseason, his OPS is 1.063. What a player.

If only it were those three that the Yankees had to worry about. Muncy has been great in October, at one point in the NLCS reaching base a record 12 consecutive plate appearances. Thanks to eight hits and 12 walks, his on-base percentage in the postseason is .468, highest among all players who have played at least two series. Muncy has played third base in the games Freeman has played, first base when Freeman is out.

When Muncy is at first, the Dodgers have turned to super utility man Kike Hernandez at third and as he’s done throughout his 11-year career, Hernandez has been an October savante. He’s a career .238 hitter in the regular season, but it’s .278 in the postseason and in the nine game he has played in 2024, he’s hitting .303. He has also drawn starts at second base and in the outfield because manager Dave Roberts knows he needs to get him on the field.

Trade deadline acquisition Tommy Edman has been worth it, I’d say. He just won the NLCS MVP award after hitting .407 with one homer and 11 RBI, plus he plays a slick shortstop, this after playing in only 37 regular season games because he was battling an injury.

Left-fielder Teoscar Hernandez, who single-handedly destroyed the Yankees in that series back in June, has slumped in the postseason, but he just woke up in Game 6 against the Mets, so that’s not great.

Catcher Will Smith is another great player, but he’s really struggling in the postseason with a .158 average, and .605 OPS, though he still has six RBI. And the only other two heavily-used players, second baseman Gavin Lux and center fielder Andy Pages, are potential soft spots in the lineup.

Los Angeles’ pitching has been quite a story. Injuries decimated this team so 40 different pitchers threw at least one inning during the regular season, and 17 made at least one start. By comparison, only eight men started a game for the Yankees.

However, if the three starters Roberts has available in this series - Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Jack Flaherty and Walker Buehler - pitch to their expectation, they’ll be trouble for the Yankees. The Yankees saw Yamamoto dominate them back in June two seven innings of two-hit shutout ball before he got hurt and missed three months, meaning he’s just starting to regain his form and they’ve been limiting his pitch count.

Flaherty was minutes away from joining the Yankees at the trade deadline, but the medical staff wouldn’t sign off on the trade because of a lingering shoulder injury. The Dodgers said fine, we’ll take him and made the deal with the Tigers. Flaherty went 6-2 with a 3.58 ERA, but in the postseason he had one good start with seven shutout innings in Game 1 against the Mets, but he was roughed up by the Padres and then was hammered by the Mets in Game 5 when he allowed eight earned runs.

Buehler, coming off his second Tommy John surgery, has made just 28 regular-season starts since the end of 2021, and this year was rough - a 5.38 ERA in 16 starts, then a terrible outing against the Padres. But his last start in Game 3 against the Mets was solid, four shutout innings. Like Yamamoto, they are limiting his pitch count.

All of this means that the Dodgers have been relying on their bullpen the way Cleveland did. They had to use bullpen games three times in their 11 postseason games and that will probably happen in the World Series. So far, relievers have had to pitch 57 innings for the Dodgers, and they have a cumulative 3.16 ERA, but against the Mets, LA’s bullpen began to show some fatigue as it had a 3.86 ERA and 1.530 WHIP, so the Yankees should have a chance to score against the likes of Ryan Brasier, Anthony Banda, Ben Casparius, Landon Knack, Daniel Hudson and Evan Phillips, but also the best the Dodgers have in Michael Kopech and Blake Treinen.

Here’s the schedule for the series, with only the Game 1 pitching matchup announced as I write this:

• Game 1: Friday, 8:08 on FOX, it’s Gerrit Cole (3.31 postseason ERA) against Flaherty (7.04);

• Game 2: Saturday, 8:08 on FOX; Probably Carlos Rodon (4.40) against Yamamoto (5.11);

• Game 3: Monday, 8:08 on FOX;

• Game 4: Tuesday, 8:08 on FOX;

• Game 5: Wednesday, 8:08 on FOX (if necessary);

• Game 6: Friday, Nov. 1, 8:08 on FOX (if necessary);

• Game 7: Saturday, Nov. 2 8:08 on FOX (if necessary).

EDITORS NOTE: Unfortunately, the start of this World Series is pretty problematic for me due to my flight schedule for my trip to Seattle for the Bills game. Thus, I’ll be lucky to get a newsletter to you after Game 1 by midday Saturday, and it’s probably going to be the same following Games 2 and 3. It can’t be avoided, so when 7:30 a.m. rolls around, it won’t be in your inbox, but be patient, eventually it’ll get there.