Prior to the Yankees taking down title #27 last Wednesday night, it had only been nine years since the Yankees last won the World Series, but boy, did it ever feel like ages ago.
When the Yankees beat the Mets in 2000 I was a sophomore in college, and after winning a third straight championship, it felt like the team might never lose again. Of course, they wound up losing in about as excruciatingly a way as possible the following year, falling in the bottom of the 9th in Game 7 of the 2001 World Series with the greatest closer of all time on the mound.
Seconds after Luis Gonzalez won the game for the Diamondbacks, I called my dad from my fraternity in a state of panic and shock. I’d been a Yankee fan my entire life, but the team’s run of sustained success in the late ’90s coincided with my coming of age, and by the time the World Series rolled around in 2001 it felt as if the Yankees had a God-given right to not only be representing the American League year in and year out, but to take the whole thing down repeatedly.
When that aura of invincibility finally cracked, it was a devastating blow to a good portion of the fanbase, especially those in my age group who were aware that the Yankees had their dark days (the 1988 through 1992 campaigns in particular stand out) but didn’t follow the team obsessively until they started getting good again around 1993-1994.
Simply put — and admittedly perception may be greater than reality here, but bear with me (there is statistical analysis later on) — one of the biggest reasons the Yankees’ 2009 championship has been more exciting to me than any that preceded it is that it feels harder to win it all today.
Since the Yankees’ four-titles-in-five-years run in the late ’90s, seemingly every team in baseball has sought to improve itself in a variety of ways, perhaps most notably via the adoption of advanced statistical analysis across front offices throughout the league. Wholesale improvement in baseball operations and an increased desire to win has led to a level of parity not even Bud Selig himself could have envisioned. No team has repeated as champions since the Yankees did in 2000, and only one World Series champion in the ensuing years has even made it back to the Series the following year to try to defend its title — this year’s Phillies.
This is not to make light of what the Yankees accomplished in 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2000. I would single out 1996 as probably the most exciting of those championship years, given that it was the first time the Yankees won the World Series in my lifetime as well as the fact that it had been 18 years since the previous title. We all know the 1998 Yankees were a team for the ages, and probably in the franchise’s top 3 of all time. Of course, there was also a ton of pressure on that team to win the World Series after a then-record 114 regular season wins, and thankfully they came through in spades.
The 1999 team was also excellent, although admittedly my memory of the playoffs that year is spottier than I’d care to admit, given that it took place during the first semester of my freshman year at college. Unfortunately, the 2000 squad was arguably the weakest Yankee team to ever win a championship, but thankfully they were able to take care of the Mets in the Subway Series.
However, baseball seems to reinvent itself every decade or so, and quite a bit has changed since the Yankees were laying waste to the rest of the league. As mentioned previously, the level of competition during that late-’90s run just doesn’t seem as intense as it does now. The 1998 Padres? The 1999 Braves? Those teams would get eaten alive in the modern-day NL (well, maybe not the NL West).
Consider the following:
The late-’90s Yankees didn’t have to deal with 18 regular season games a year that the media and fans hype up to a playoff-level atmosphere against the Red Sox, and even if they did, the late-’90s Manny- and Papi-less Red Sox just weren’t as intimidating as the 2003-and-beyond squad, despite some very good pitching. This decade the Red Sox have been the second-best team in baseball after the Yankees, and every game can feel like a matter of life or death. It did not feel that way 10 years ago. Back then the entire AL East was basically a Yankee punching bag, especially the now vastly improved Tampa Bay Devil Rays.
The late-’90s Yankees also never lost a playoff series to the Red Sox in about as difficult-to-stomach-a-fashion as possible: coughing up a 3-0 lead in the 2004 ALCS. No need to relive that here, but as many have touched on, that series loss changed the swagger of much of the Yankee fanbase, and for the first time predisposed many a Yankee fan to begin to accept that failure was a real possibility.
The playoff losses of this decade — losing to the D-Backs and Marlins in the World Series; the Sox in ’04; getting dumped in the first round by the Angels twice, Tigers and Indians; and not even making it to the dance in 2008 — all contribute to why the 2009 victory is so special to me. In the late ’90s, the Red Sox still hadn’t won the World Series in more than 80 years; this decade Yankee fans have seen Boston win twice since New York last won, the last of which was a mere two years ago.
As I’ve touched on previously, another huge component of why the 2009 championship is the most exciting of my lifetime is the fact that my passion for the team has grown even more intense during the last several years — something I didn’t think possible — largely due to the advent of the elite Yankee blogs, most of which weren’t even in existence the last time the Yankees were in the World Series and have enabled countless fans like myself to supplement their experience with fantastic commentary on a daily basis, even throughout the offseason.
As a 28-year-old adult, I haven’t experienced the joy of a championship since I was a teenager, and not to take anything away from 19-year-old Larry, but the Yankees are a much higher priority to me now than when I was in college.
Returning to opponents’ level of difficulty for a moment, this year’s run to the championship also felt like one of the toughest, between the unbalanced schedule, a revitalized and very tough AL East and the fact that there are almost no pushovers teams in the American League anymore (save perhaps the Royals). Despite a thoroughly competitive Major League landscape, the Yankees still managed to win the AL East and post their highest win total since 2002.
Additionally, the Yankees’ road to #27 wasn’t exactly a walk in the park, either. While no one outside of Minnesota likely expected the Twins to win in the first round, the 2009 ALCS was one fraught with concern, given the Angels’ dominance of the Yankees during much of the last decade. That the Yankees were able to dispose of the team that has provided more angst that any other franchise (Red Sox included; for as much as facing Boston can be heart-attack-inducing, at least those two teams play each other about as evenly as possible) in six games was incredibly gratifying, not to mention the fact that it should finally quiet some people up about how the Yankees can never beat the Angels.
Additionally, the 2009 Philadelphia Phillies may have been about as even a match on paper for the Yankees as any of the late -’90s World Series foes (at least offensively). It seemed highly unlikely that either team would be able to deliver a sweep, a la 1998 and 1999. The Yankees were still able to take care of business in six games (and make me an even three-for-three in playoff predictions), putting up more than five runs a game in the Series despite, as Larry Mahnken notes, receiving a combined .167/.244/.282 line from Robinson Cano, Nick Swisher, Jorge Posada and Mark Teixeira after that quartet went .289/.368/.528 in the regular season.
Of course, none of it would have been possible without absolutely stellar performances from the pitching staff. The Yankees’ three-man rotation delivered quality starts in 11 of the team’s 15 postseason games (two of which came in losses — ALCS Game 3 and World Series Game 1), with ace CC Sabathia authoring a quality outing in all five of his starts, going 3-1 with 32 strikeouts and a ridiculous 1.98 ERA. All told, the starters pitched to a 3.43 ERA and the entire staff notched a 3.26 mark. And of course, the bullpen was once again anchored by the greatest reliever in history, as Mariano threw 16 innings of one-run ball in 12 appearances (0.56 ERA) and struck out 14 batters.
Although my emotions tell me that the 2009 title was the most satisfying one I’ve experienced, I was also curious to see whether the numbers would actually bear this out as well, so I went back and took a look at the cumulative wOBA and FIP of the Yankees, their playoff opponents, and the leagues in each of the Yankees’ last five championship years. Numbers in parentheses are the team’s rank in their respective league.
| 2009 | wOBA | FIP |
| Yankees | .366 (1) | 4.32 (4) |
| Phillies | .340 (1) | 4.36 (11) |
| Angels | .346 (3) | 4.45 (10) |
| Twins | .338 (5) | 4.39 (8) |
| AL | .334 | 4.42 |
| NL | .323 | 4.24 |
| MLB | .329 | 4.33 |
| 2000 | wOBA | FIP |
| Yankees | .350 (7) | 4.61 (4) |
| Mets | .338 (7) | 4.31 (3) |
| Mariners | .352 (5) | 4.65 (6) |
| Athletics | .357 (3) | 4.61 (4) |
| AL | .345 | 4.83 |
| NL | .337 | 4.71 |
| MLB | .341 | 4.77 |
| 1999 | wOBA | FIP |
| Yankees | .357 (3) | 4.35 (2) |
| Braves | .338 (9) | 3.85 (2) |
| Red Sox | .348 (7) | 4.10 (1) |
| Rangers | .363 (2) | 4.60 (4) |
| AL | .344 | 4.8 |
| NL | .338 | 4.63 |
| MLB | .341 | 4.72 |
| 1998 | wOBA | FIP |
| Yankees | .361 (1) | 4.15 (1) |
| Padres | .325 (8) | 3.84 (2) |
| Indians | .347 (5) | 4.54 (8) |
| Rangers | .356 (2) | 4.42 (5) |
| AL | .338 | 4.57 |
| NL | .325 | 4.31 |
| MLB | .332 | 4.44 |
| 1996 | wOBA | FIP |
| Yankees | .348 (7) | 4.25 (1) |
| Braves | .332 (2) | 3.50 (1) |
| Orioles | .354 (5) | 4.89 (8) |
| Rangers | .358 (3) | 4.63 (4) |
| AL | .347 | 4.92 |
| NL | .324 | 4.30 |
| MLB | .336 | 4.61 |
As you can see, the playing landscape of 2009 is considerably different than it was back then, as the league as a whole posted its lowest wOBA and FIP of any of the Yankees’ five championship years. That alone tells us that offense is down and pitching has improved. Despite a suppressed offensive environment, the 2009 Yankees’ best-in-baseball offense not only posted the highest wOBA of any of these championship teams — even better than the 1998 squad — but beat the league average by 0.32, the greatest margin of improvement over league average. The only other year the Yankees had the best offense in the AL was 1998.
The 2009 Phillies did indeed have the best offense of any World Series foe in this sample, and were also the only top-ranked offense any Yankee team had to face. Of course, Philadelphia’s pitching staff’s FIP is the worst of the NL teams the Yankees played, and actually below-average for 2009.
The 2009 Yankees also faced top offenses in both the Angels (3rd best in the AL) and Twins (5th-best), making the achievements of the pitching staff in the postseason that much more impressive, although again, neither the Angels’ or Twins’ staffs were in the top half of the AL in FIP.
The much-maligned 2000 Yankees squad probably had the highest hill to climb, beating superior offenses in the first two rounds and facing a very good Mets pitching staff in the World Series. The 1996 team was also an offensive underdog, although somewhat surprisingly led the AL in FIP. They also faced some pretty terrible pitching staffs in both the Rangers and the Orioles. What’s really crazy about 1996 is how good the Braves were — second-best offense in the NL and a 3.50 FIP in a league where the average was 4.30.
What actually stood out to me the most about the 1998 and 1999 campaigns is that the Rangers were apparently a much better squad than I remember — I suppose back-to-back first round sweeps will do that. Also, Boston had the best FIP in the AL in 1999, due in no small part to Pedro Martinez. And of course, the 1998 Yankees had both the best wOBA and FIP in the American League that year, something not even the 2009 team can say.
So do the stats back my emotions? Obviously, not entirely — the Yankees’ playoff opponents’ average wOBA and FIP in 2009 was .341 and 4.40; in 2000 it was .349 and 4.52; in 1999 .350 and 4.18; 1998 .343 and 4.27; and 1996 .348 and 4.34, so draw from those numbers whatever conclusions you will.
Regardless, baseball from 1996 through 2000 was a considerably different animal that it is now, and for that and for all the reasons I cited above I maintain that the Yankees’ 2009 title is the most gratifying of my life.
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Ditto – being older now and just having a better overall understanding of the game, the increased competition and parity in the league. By no means would I go into next season expecting a repeat, which makes the Phillies trip back to the Fall Classic that much more impressive.
My main priority this off-season: stay the course. We have strayed from going older since Cashman took the reigns, and avoided the signing/acquisition of FAs past their prime see: The Big Unit, Kevin Brown, Jaret Wright, Gary Sheffield, (Tony Womack??) et al. The only way we continue our success with the way the MLB is construtcted in this day in age is by developing younger talent at the major league level.
This team had that mix of veteran and young/homegrown (call it what you will) talent that was the perfect recipe for a championship. Oh yea, and absolutely ridiculous starting pitching during the entire playoff run…
Great post Larry…curious to see what the hot stove has cooking over the next several months…
I'm sorry, but this is the biggest load of blowhard horseshit I've ever read in my life. This championship means more because it felt harder to get there? Cry me a river.
You're certainly entitled to your opinion, and while admittedly I'm guilty of mixing statistical analysis with emotion in this particular post, I think it's pretty clear that the current competitive environment of MLB is vastly improved over what it was 10 years ago.
Sure it's improved but what does that matter? Yes the Red Sox and Devil Rays are better, but that didn't exactly make for what you'd call a tight pennant race this year. Look, they went out last offseason and committed like a half-billion dollars in long-term contracts to three guys. In the ensuing season they promptly won 103 games and a World Series title. When you take a good team and add the top 3 free agents on the market, they SHOULD be World Series contenders. The fact is, the Yankees have spent the last ten years failing to live up to the hype created by their annual "dump truck full of money" spending spree. Bully for Cashman for finally getting it right and signing the right group of mercenaries, but they're still mercenaries. And it seems to me – admittedly an outsider here – that a diehard like yourself would feel more of an affinity for the Yankees of Tino Martinez, Paul O'Neill, and Scott Brosius than these guys who, frankly, would be comfortably wearing just about any other jersey in baseball right now if anybody else had the money the Yankees do. So again, I tip my cap to the team for pulling it off, and rightfully acknowledge every Yankees fan's right to feel good about their team…But saying this felt better than 2000, where they beat an inter-city rival in a heated World Series that was won by a total of like four runs in five games is really pushing it.
Certainly all valid points. I can see how comparing the relative happiness a championship brought at a given point in time might seem like a fruitless exercise, especially given the fact that something that happens to us in the present is almost always going to resonate moreso than the same occurrence 10 years prior.
However, while I'll always appreciate what the Tinos, O'Neills and Brosiuses of the '90s did for the Yankees, Yankee fans also have an annoying tendency to deify these guys. If anything ever goes south in modern-day Yankeeland, the de rigeur response is always something about how the "dynasty" Yankees would've found a way to overcome adversity, etc. Even something as innocuous as an A-Rod strikeout will lead some idiot Yankee fan somewhere to call for the Yankees to get Brosius out of retirement. The late 90s Yankees obviously fielded some very good teams, but they also happened 10 years ago.
Since then, we all know the Yankees have been paying ludicrous amounts of money for past performance much of this decade, but they did finally get it right this year, and as someone who follows the team on a daily basis, it was gratifying to see the big free agent acquisitions not only do their jobs, but also ingratiate themselves with the existing members of the team.
Most importantly, as I mentioned in the post, the rise of Yankee blogs such as River Ave. Blues, Bronx Banter, etc. have significantly enhanced my already feverish passion for the team, and after reading critical analysis about the team online every single day for the last five years — including disappointing postseason after disappointing postseason — my euphoria was significantly enhanced, as in addition to my friends and family, I feel as though I got to enjoy this win with an entire community of people I've never even met.
There's a lot of good stuff in this post. I really enjoyed your points about following this team more closely and feeling like they won in the face of greater competitive balance. Your anonymous friend counters with a solid point saying that there may have been less competitive balance ten years ago, but the Yanks also weren't quite at the point of buying every good free agent yet either. Perhaps those two factors cancel each other out.
If we're talking purely about personal enjoyment, I'm squarely in the camp of deifying the late-90s dynasty squad. But I think we have to acknowledge that baseball is a very, very different game now than it was then — after all, you could call the past decade the money era, the moneyball era, or the steroids era. All three have had an enormous impact, and I don't think there's any doubt we'll end up viewing this past decade as the greatest period of change in the game's history.
My feeling is this change has been almost entirely for the bad. As Larry and I have discussed ad neauseum, I get far greater pleasure from seeing a hometown boy rise through the system and become a star than seeing the latest $50 million acquisition hit home runs generated from biceps of dubious girth and origin. But I also realize that the game is where it's at, there's no turning back, and I still love the Yankees. And you do have to tip your cap to them for managing to evolve over the past years to be a consistenly successful team in a rapidly changing sport.