We know how good the Yankees and Mets were last season, all the way to the end of October, and until they both ran into the Dodgers, who became the first team in history to take out all of Baseball New York this way in the same postseason. The Dodgers finally put the Mets away in Game 6 of the National League Championship Series, then did the same in Game 5 to the Yankees, when the Yankees were trying to push the whole thing back to L.A. the way the Mets just had.
So the Mets came that close to the World Series for the first time in nearly a decade. The Yankees made it back to the Series for the first time in a decade-in-a-half. The Yankees had an MVP — again — in Aaron Judge, and Juan Soto finished third in the voting. The Mets and their fans saw Francisco Lindor finish second to Shohei Ohtani for MVP in his league. It was all a lot, the best two-team October around here since we got that Subway Series out of the past, back in 2000.
Now, as they get ready to do it again – or do even more this time around – the question, and it’s a fair one, is this:
How good are they, really?
Better yet: Is either team capable of winning even 90 games?
Are the Yankees, without Gerrit Cole for the season and without Giancarlo Stanton (stop me if you’ve heard that one before) and with Luis Gil, the 2024 Rookie of the Year, opening the season on the Injured List, still the best bet to win the American League East, and go on from there to win the pennant? Can they somehow make it back to the World Series without a dream draw against the American League Central, a place the Yankees have always looked at as the undercard of their league?
Can Judge still look like not just the biggest and baddest man on the planet without Soto hitting in front of him? Judge remains a force of nature despite how a relatively quiet October — .154 against the Royals, .167 against the Guardians, .222 against the Dodgers, 20 strikeouts, nine hits, three homers — at least by the high standard he had set in another rousing regular season. Now, even without Soto, the Yankees still need him to be great. And, boy, has he ever been great these past four seasons, with 196 home runs. The best Babe Ruth did over his best four-year run was 209.
“I loved to watch [Judge] last year,” Soto said the other day in Florida. “He was incredible.”
So was Soto. No. 22 and No. 99. The Incredibles, in pinstripes, doing Ruth and Gehrig and Maris and Mantle things up there at the top of Aaron Boone’s batting order. Now they both try to do it again without each other, and it will be as compelling a storyline across the New York baseball season as any.
But first things first for the Yankees, and before we get to the Mets: Are they good enough, with the hits their starting rotation has taken already and as thin as it looks, good enough to finish first again in the AL East? It looks as if the Red Sox are set up to make a big run at them, even more than the Orioles are. You know who else is lurking there in the pack behind them? The team that will be playing its home games at George Steinbrenner Field in Tampa this season, and that means the Rays. If the Yankees are worried about pitching, Kevin Cash isn’t with his Rays.
The Yankees should still have enough to get the job done. At these prices, and with three former MVPs in the batting order — Judge, Cody Bellinger, Paul Goldschmidt (it’s kind of a lot) — they should be able to figure it out. But I’m not sure, right now today, if I had to make a bet on which team will win the East, it wouldn’t be on the Red Sox, who have added Garrett Crochet and Alex Bregman; who have a world of young talent; who are finally set up to make a run if they can stay healthy.
The Mets, of course, are in an even tougher division, even if they do have Soto playing for them now. But going into the season, and even after what happened when it was Mets vs. Phillies in their Division Series, the Phillies are still loaded, you bet. Bryce Harper is still there and so is Trea Turner and so is Kyle Schwarber. They have Zach Wheeler at the top of their rotation, one of the true aces in the game. They added Jordan Romano to their bullpen, and Jesus Luzardo to their rotation. They absolutely hate the way their last two seasons ended, and will have as much of an edge to them as any team in baseball this season.
I was talking to Rob Thomson, the terrific old Yankee coach who manages the Phillies now, and he said this about his team:
“There’s a hunger here I haven’t seen before. That doesn’t mean there hasn’t been hunger before. But it’s even more apparent now, like next level.”
The Braves are also still right there in the NL East and, guess what? There is a world of young talent with the Nationals, who might be ready to make their own move this season after some down years since Soto left them after helping them win a World Series in 2019.
For now, this isn’t about the Dodgers, who took everything from the Mets and Yankees last season and have only gotten better. This isn’t about where everybody will be by the time we get to the next baseball October, or how the last October ended for our teams. This is about Opening Day. This is about both the Yankees and Mets trying to do it again, or even do it better than they just did. But can they? Play ball.
