Have The Yankees Been "Competitive?"

by Dusty Writes

January 2026

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In a recent articles, Paul Semendinger mentioned that Yankees fans can be divided into two camps, those disappointed in their lack of winning a World Series since 2009, and those who are satisfied with the Yankees being in the playoffs most of the time.

When fans compliment the Yankees organization for putting together "competitive" teams almost every season, how do they define "competitive?" If by "competitive" they are speaking about competing for a playoff spot each season, then the Yankees are "competitive." However, if we define "competitive" as putting a team together with a great chance of winning a World Series, then the Yankees have not been "competitive".

In my opinion, the Yankees organization since 2010 has been a major disappointment due to a lack of at least one world championship.

With the Yankees' very high payroll and the watered-down playoff system, which has enabled the Yankees to make the playoffs 12 times out of the last 16 seasons, how do the Yankees fail to win a world championship?

If we take into account that the Yankees' payroll, which has either been the highest or one of the highest for most of Brian Cashman's tenure as GM (28 years), the Yankees regular season record from 2010-2025 isn't as impressive as it may seem. There are a number of GMs, in my opinion, who would likely have as good, if not better, regular season record as the Yankees have from 2010-2025, if they had the same payroll as the Yankees have.

Here are some examples:

The Cleveland Guardians payroll is nowhere close to the Yankees' payroll. When does Cleveland ever have anywhere near the top payroll in MLB?  From 2015-2025, according to Baseball Reference and other sources, the Yankees won 959 games, and Cleveland won 924 games. In these 11 seasons, the Yankees win an average of only slightly more than 3 games more per season than Cleveland. If the Yankees have a payroll each season, let's say, $100 million or more than Cleveland's payroll, dollar for dollar, Cleveland is by far the better run organization.

Over a 162 game season from 2015-2025, on average, Cleveland would win about 89 games and the Yankees about 93 games per season. (I gave both teams an additional 60 wins to compensate for the 60- game season in 2020, just to round things off.) If the Cleveland front office had the Yankees payroll, and the Yankees had Cleveland's payroll, it seems almost certainly that Cleveland would have by far a better regular season record than the Yankees these last 11 seasons. Both teams have won one pennant during that span.

During these 11 seasons, the Houston Astros have been superior to the Yankees, as Houston won 976 games to the Yankees 959. Houston has also won 2 World Series and 4 pennants in that span. Houston has nowhere near the Yankees payroll.

According to Statmuse, since 2008 (when Tampa Bay became a good team), the Yankees won 1,607 games compared to the Rays 1,523 games. In 18 seasons (2008-2025), the Yankees won only 84 more games than the Rays, for an average of only 4.7 wins per year more than the Rays! The Rays have a minor league payroll compared to the Yankees, as the Rays always have one of the lowest, if not lowest payroll in MLB. The Yankees have had at times payrolls 3 or 4 times larger than the Rays, how many hundreds of millions of dollars more did the Yankees spend on payroll compared to the Rays, to achieve only 4-5 more wins per season on average than Tampa Bay?

Which organization, dollar for dollar, is the better organization, Tampa or the Yankees from 2008-2025? During these last 18 seasons, both teams won 2 pennants, although the Yankees did win a World Series in 2009. The Yankees made the postseason 13 times while Tampa made the postseason 9 times during this span. The Yankees won 6 divisional championships while Tampa won 4.

If Cashman had the Rays payroll, and the Rays had the Yankees payroll, would the Yankees have ever made the playoffs since 2008?

There were discussions among fans about how good the Rays would be with a high payroll like the Yankees since Tampa had it's first good season in 2008. Andrew Friedman was the GM for the Rays, when they became a good team. He went to the Dodgers to start his Dodgers career as President of Baseball Operations in October of 2014. 

Friedman, probably the best GM in MLB, finally had an organization that gave him a large payroll budget when he joined the Dodgers. If we compare the accomplishments of Friedman as the top person for the Dodgers front office, compared to Cashman, GM of the Yankees, there is no comparison. Friedman wins the comparison by a landslide.

Since the start of the 2015 season, the Dodgers have won 1,036 games compared to the Yankees' 959. The 77-game differential would probably be greater if the 2020 season was 162 games, because the Dodgers had a tremendous team that season, with a record of 43-17, while the Yankees were only 33-27. If that season played out the full 162 games, most likely the Dodgers would have been more than 10 games better than the Yankees. During this span, the Yankees won 1 pennant, the Dodgers 5. The Yankees zero world championships, the Dodgers 3. The Yankees won 3 divisional titles, while the Dodgers won 10. The one year the Dodgers didn't win the division, they finished 1 game out.

The Yankees organizational expectations and the Dodgers expectations are entirely different. The Yankees are satisfied to compete and they hope that if they build their teams to make the playoffs almost every season, one of these times things will go their way and they will finally win a World Series. That doesn't seem like a confident expectation, it sounds more like hope. But hope is not the best strategy. Andrew Friedman has much higher expectations.  In a recent article, it stated Friedman previously said that he expected this current Dodgers team to be the greatest Dodgers team in their history, and to exceed the great success of previous great Dodgers teams.

Friedman doesn't hope the Dodgers will win a championship if they make the playoffs enough times and luck goes their way. He expects the Dodgers to dominate for many seasons.

Compared to the Dodgers from 2015-present, is the Yankees regular season record really that impressive? 

Losing 12 straight times in the postseason (since 2010) is not the "luck of the draw" or "roll of the dice" or "anything can happen in a short series." It is a failure of the Yankees organization to build a world champion team.

From 2010-2025, on average, about 7 1/2 teams per season finish with a record of .500 or better. Of these 7-8 teams per season, maybe 3 or 4 at most, are what would be classified as elite teams. Therefore, the Yankees, for the most part, are only competing against 3 or 4 teams, at most per season, who can seriously challenge for a World Series. The odds should be the Yankees would have won a World Series by now since 2010.

What is even more discouraging for Yankees fans is that Cashman and Steinbrenner continue to build teams the same way and the same results happen in the playoffs (defeat the weak teams but get outplayed by the better teams). The Yankees, for the most part, acquire the same type of batters who hit a ton of homers, many of which are against weaker teams and weaker pitching, but can't come through in the clutch vs the better teams in the playoffs.

According to Statmuse, since 2010, in the playoffs the Yankees batters collectively have batted .222 in 89 games. This is an extremely large sample size, as it includes 2,968 at bats. During these 89 games the Yankees averaged only 4.2 runs per game, and that was due, in large part, to scoring a ton of runs vs the weaker under-financed playoff teams. For example, the Yankees in this span scored 48 runs in 7 games vs Minnesota. Also, they score runs in bunches when they are not needed and usually do not win the close games vs the better teams. In 2011 the Yankees lost a playoff series to Detroit 3 games to 2. The Yankees won 9-3 and 10-1 in their 2 wins. They lost 5-3, 5-4, and 3-2 in their three losses. This is yet another example of how misleading "run differential " can be. The Yankees outscored Detroit that series 28-17.

In the 2017 ALCS vs Houston, in the Yankees' 3 wins they scored 8,6,5 runs. In the 4 losses, all in Houston they scored 1,1,1, 0 runs.

In another postseason loss to Houston, in 2019, the Yankees won Game 1, 7-0. the next game they lost 3-2 in extra innings.

The same story in the 2024 World Series. In the only game they won, they won 11-4, as Dave Roberts used a bullpen game in Game 4 as the Yankees won easily 11-4. In the 4 games they lost, they lost 6-3 in extra innings, 4-2, 4-2, 7-6. They are a terrible team when it comes to winning close games vs the better teams. This has a lot to due with their lack of situational hitting. 

The Yankees team has been designed to hit a ton of homers, but this approach has proven to be a colossal failure against the good teams in the postseason. The Yankees the last 16 seasons are by far the best hitting home run team in MLB, and yet they have not won a World Series.

The Yankees led the league in homers in 2011,2012,2017,2018,2022,2024,2025. In 2019 the Twins set an MLB record with 307 home runs. That season the Yankees had 306 homers. In 2020, the Yankees were 2 homers away from leading the league in home runs again.

In contrast, when the Yankees had their dynasty, (1996,1998,1999,2000) those seasons the Yankees in home runs ranked 12th, 4th, 8th, and 6th in the league.

I'm not saying the Yankees shouldn't hit home runs, but the type of home run hitters the Yankees have acquired, for the most part, have not been good situational hitters in the postseason. The Dodgers lead the league in homers, but they are much better all-around hitters than the players the Yankees have.

The other thing about the Yankees batters in the postseason from 2010-2025 is that they don't make enough productive outs, get the bat on the ball. Their batters have averaged as a team, 9.6 strikeouts a game. That is an incredibly high amount of strikeouts. In the 2022 postseason in which the Astros swept the Yankees in 4 games, the Astros struck out 25 times, while the Yankees struck out 50 times.