Perspectives on Run Scored (and Winning)

by Paul Semendinger

February 23, 2026

***

There have been numerous comments about the Yankees and their ability to score runs over the last few days. Much has been stated (time and again) about the fact that they led the American League in runs scored in 2025.

Of note... the Yankees also led the American League in runs scored in 2024.

The Yankees led the American League in runs scored in 2022.

And 2020.

In 2019, the Yankees led all of baseball in runs scored.

In 2018, they were second in the A.L. and MLB in runs.

That's a lot of seasons of scoring a lot of runs. With Aaron Boone as the Yankees manager, the Yankees score lots and lots and lots of runs.

But, there's one thing that's missing in all of this.

In none of those seasons did the Yankees win the World Series.

The run scoring has not led to championships.

This leads me to question how important all that run scoring has been for the Aaron Boone Yankees. It's a nice statistic. Leading the league in runs is impressive in a vacuum. But, the primary goal, the end goal, should be, and must be, winning championships.

There is, and has been, something missing in regards to the Yankees and run scoring and winning. They have not gone together. The runs have not led to championships.

***

There is optimism among some fans that the runs the Yankees scored in previous years, including last year, is reason to feel good about their chances to be champions in 2026.

Forgive me, I don't see it.

For the Yankees in the Aaron Boone Era, leading the league in runs scored is not, in any way, an indication that the team is going to be a champion. In fact, it is quite the opposite. The Yankees score a lot of runs, often more than any other team, and yet that has not translated to postseason success.

***

In 2025, the Yankees were eliminated in the ALDS. The run scoring behemoth lost one of the three games in the ALDS by the score of 10-1. They lost another 5-2. The runs scored during the season didn't translate to the playoffs.

In 2024, in the World Series, the Yankees scored 3, 2, and 2 runs in three of the four losses. Again, they stopped hitting when it mattered the most.

In 2022, the Yankees were swept in the ALCS by the Astros. In three of the four losses, they scored 2, 2, and 0 runs.

The Yankees scored pretty well in the 2020 ALDS, but in the critical fifth game, they scored only one run.

In 2019, the Yankees lost Games 2, 3, and 4 against the Astros in the ALCS. They scored 2, 1, and 3 runs in those games.

In the critical Games 3 and 4 against the Red Sox in the 2018 ALDS, they scored 1 and 3 runs, losing both games.

***

I have made the point, often, over the years on these pages, that scoring runs in bunches and scoring runs aplenty have not been the Yankees' problem.

What the Yankees have not been able to do is generate runs when they need them to win close games. Yes, the Yankees can score a lot. This often seems to happen against the worse teams. But when it becomes necessary to score runs to win important games, the Yankees' bats often fall silent. (The manager also deserves some blame here because he's often caught off-guard, confused, and/or out-maneuvered by the game's better managers.)

Every single postseason of the Boone Era has seen a series where the Yankees failed to score runs and where they ultimately lost.

The only logical conclusion is that something is missing in all of this.

What we see most often during most seasons is that the Yankees score a lot when things go right. They can (and do) win big. But when they need to do the little things that win close games (bunt, move a runner over, take a pitch, shorten a swing, hit the other way, and the like) the Yankees, by and large, fail to execute. Any honest fan who has watched the team these last many years knows that what I am writing here is absolutely true.

***

In the first years of the Boone Era, the Yankees were able to win one run games and extra inning games.

From 2018-2022, the Yankees went 106-90 in one run games. In that same period, they went 41-27 in extra inning games.

(That also didn't translate to postseason success, of course...)

But, more relevant to the 2026 team, the last three years, the Yankees have been very poor in one run games and extra inning affairs.

From 2023-2025, the Yankees have gone 59-63 in one run games and are 21-25 in extra innings.

To me, those numbers indicate that what I sense with my eyes is true - the Yankees have been failing to do the little things that are necessary to win close games, including scoring runs when it matters most.

***

A lot has been written that the playoffs are a "crap shoot." It is said that the playoffs are a time where anyone can get hot and win it all.

And that can be true.

But what is also true is that the best team in baseball won the World Series in 2024. (And one can argue that although they didn't have the most wins in 2025, that the Dodgers last year were also baseball's best team.)

The best AL team won the World Series in 2022.

The best team won the World Series in 2020.

And the best team won the World Series in 2018.

If the best team is measured by regular season wins, the best team often wins the World Series. If it was strictly a result of small sample sizes, the best team wouldn't win this often. It matters, still, to be the best.

Being the best doesn't guarantee anything, but it seems to be a good strategy to be the best team heading into the playoffs because good things often happen when one has the most talent on the field.

***

In the end, this comes down to a philosophical question about the team and the way the fans look at it.

Some fans are very happy with the current approach - just be good enough and hope for the best in the playoffs. They believe anything can happen. All they have to do is get hot. In the playoffs, a Brian Doyle can emerge. A Bucky Dent... This is the "good enough, is good enough" approach.

And that's great. I wish I could be more optimistic and hopeful when it comes to the Yankees. That's also the beauty of fandom - we each can derive what we want from the team and how we root for them.

Other fans, myself included, feel that the New York Yankees, the team that's entire brand is based on a long tradition of winning, shouldn't be content to simply be a little better than average - just good enough to make the playoffs and to hope for good fortune or luck. Instead, the Yankees should build the best possible team every single season so they head into the playoffs as the favorites. Sure, the best teams can lose, but I would always prefer to lose as the better team, knowing that losing happens in sports, than to go into the postseason hoping that my inferior team gets lucky and wins knowing that that approach isn't likely to work out. (It certainly has not worked these last many years.)

The difference between these approaches is vast. One side accepts "good enough," the other expects excellence.

Throughout their history, by and large, dating back to the days of Babe Ruth, except for when the Yankees were owned by CBS and today under Hal Steinbrenner, the team preached excellence. Greatness. That was the goal.

They weren't always great. And there were some bad years, but there was a very real feeling that they were going to go for it every single year. And, for the most part, they did.

It was this drive for excellence, for greatness, that made me a Yankees fan. Likewise, it is the current acceptance of being less than great that has soured me on the team these last many seasons. I am not inspired by mediocrity. (People are very excited right now about the USA Hockey Team because they won. There is joy and thrills and jubilation because of winning. That would not be present if the team lost and earned a silver medal. Winning in sports matters. That is, and must be, the ultimate goal. In big time sports, the goal must always be to be the best.)

I am enthused by the quest for greatness. I am not enthused by the quest to be just good enough to hopefully make the expanded and watered down playoffs.

As the saying goes, "Good enough never is."

As the book Good to Great notes, "Good is the enemy of great."

We're not talking about being fans of the Pirates or Brewers or Orioles or even the Red Sox. I am a fan of the Yankees, the team that build its brand by unapologetically striving for and being the best. We know they won't always win the World Series. Of course they won't. Babe Ruth won only four World Series as a Yankee. But I believe I should expect that the team strives for that goal. The Yankees should always be building towards that. And, again, we all know, if we're being honest that that has not been the gameplan during this recent era.

In football, when I watch, I root for the Jets. I don't expect them to be great. I don't even expect them to be good. But they aren't the Yankees. No team is.

For me, I believe that the people running the Yankees were given a special privilege - and their responsibility is to honor the history they inherited. I find it frustrating that the Yankees leaders do not live up to the standards that were set before them.

I know some readers get frustrated when they read my honest opinions and perspectives, some even get mad and insulting, but I have to be honest when I write. This site wouldn't work if the writers wrote things just to please some readers. This site works because we share our honest opinions and we stand by them. That shouldn't make readers angry. This is a site that writes honestly, for good and bad, about the team. And we do it respectfully.

Some fans want me to be optimistic. But right now I can't be, because I have seen, for years a flawed approach from the top down. I don't see any reason to believe that 2026 will turn out any differently than any other year in the Boone Era.

In the end, as I see it, the Yankees haven't been great because they have been content being merely good. They're heading into 2026 content because they were good last year. They scored a lot of runs (though not when it mattered most).

I miss the days when the Yankees' entire philosophy and approach was to be the best.

I believe that once the Yankees embrace that approach again, when they strive to be the absolute best in every way, that they'll soon be winners.

But until they do, they will also continually fall short.

And I wish it were otherwise, but that's how I see 2026 playing out. The Yankees should be pretty good this year. And, yes, they'll score a lot of runs.

But I don't think they'll be great, because that's not their approach any longer.