The Tuesday Discussion: Lessons Learned?

November 4, 2025

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This week we asked our writers to respond to the following:

Now that the World Series is over, what lessons can the Yankees learn from the World Series champions?

Here are their replies...

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Paul Semendinger - The Yankees need to play a better brand of baseball, of course. But, as I wrote Sunday morning,

When you don't play to win - you lose.

That sums up the Yankees for the entirety of the Hal Steinbrenner Era.

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Derek McAdam - Something I think the Yankees can learn from both the Dodgers and Blue Jays is that not every out made is a bad thing. Striking out on a 10 pitch at-bat isn’t ideal, but at least it made the pitcher work. Putting the ball in play to advance the runners is never a bad play. It sometimes feels as if when certain Yankees make an out, even if it is a sacrifice fly, it is a negative at-bat. 

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Ethan Semendinger - I did not watch much of the World Series. I am a big baseball fan, but something about this year left me feeling unexcited to watch a World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays. However, I did end up tuning into most of Games 6 and 7 and saw the same thing I've been seeing around the league (and especially with the Yankees) for years: poor fundamental baseball and decision making for the story rather than making the right choice.

Shohei Ohtani should not have started Game 7. It should have been Tyler Glasnow, like originally intended. He threw 3 pitches in Game 6. Shohei Ohtani was the "story" choice, not the smartest baseball choice.

George Springer didn't run hard to second base in the first inning of game, allowing the easiest "strike-em-out, throw-em-out" double play I've ever seen. Bo Bichette should've taken the extra base in the 2nd inning. IKF should've had a bigger lead from third base late in the game. Baserunning mistakes cost the Blue Jays.

Both teams left 10+ runners on base Game 7. The Dodgers went 1-11 with runners in scoring position. The Blue Jays went 3 for 17. That's a combined .148 average.

What should the Yankees have learned? Good baserunning and getting guys who can hit (not just hit home runs) would have made that game a blow-out.

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Andrew Hefner - Spend more money I guess? The Dodgers just keep proving that the higher the payroll and the more free agents signed, the more success they will have. There are plenty of very strong candidates on the market for the Yankees this offseason, so if Hal wants his team to be back in the conversation for next season, he is going to need to splurge. It feels ridiculous to say that the Yankees of all teams are not spending enough, but somehow that time has seemingly come. 

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Cary Greene - I'll start with a seemingly unrelated statement. The Mets generated $444 million in revenue this season and Hal Cohen spent 90 percent of it on the team's payroll - yet the Mets didn't even make the postseason. They spent a vastly higher percentage of their total revenue on their payroll than any other team did! You see my friends, spending big doesn't guarantee a championship. The Dodgers generated a whopping $752 million in revenue and they spent the second highest percentage (73%) or revenue to payroll in MLB. Toronto was third - generating 387 million and spending 71.5 percent of those profits on their payroll. 

Though spending big doesn't actually guarantee a championship, it almost always guarantees that a team will be highly competitive. It should anger Yankees fans to learn that including the Mets, Dodgers and Blue Jays, 12 MLB teams spent higher portions of their 2025 revenues on their payrolls than the Yankees did. In order, those teams were the Phillies, Diamondbacks, Padres, Rangers, Angels, Royals and Orioles! 

Meanwhile, Hal Steinbrenner sat back and pulled the wool over Yankees fan's eyes last season - generating the second highest revenue in MLB ($728 million), while only spending 49.7 percent of it on the Yankees payroll. Steinbrenner mustered a truly pathetic effort in terms of out-muscling numerous teams with vastly inferior revenue. How could he let rivals like the Dodgers and the Blue Jays kick sand in the Yankees faces while he and his family sunbathed the summer away at the beach, sipping cool drinks and then dining at all the best restaurants on the boardwalk? 

Instead of Steinbrenner being a bully, he's a financial wimp who fails time and time again to exercise the advantages the massive revenue advantages afford to the Yankees. I think Yankees fans know this, maybe they don't realize the exact numbers or the extent of his penny pinching ways, but they know. Hopefully, Yankees fans are downright fed up with Hal Steinbrenner, they should be! 

What lessons can the Yankees learn from the World Series champs this year? They learned that they need a new owner. Simple as that!

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Tim Kabel - Now that the World Series is over, I think the Yankees can draw some conclusions based on the Dodgers’ victory. The primary lesson for the Yankees to learn is that they should not be satisfied with half measures. “Good enough“ is not good enough. The Yankees can’t just slap a Band-Aid on the 2025 roster and think that will be sufficient. They need to significantly upgrade and not look for discounts and markdowns. The Yankees need to be all in for 2026 and beyond.

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Ed Botti - This was a very intense World Series loaded with many high pressure situations. If you didn’t watch it, you missed a classic.

The Blue Jays may have outplayed the Dodgers for most of the series, and were 2 outs away by their closer from winning it all.

You can’t ask for more from a manager then to hand the ball to your closer in the 9^th of a game 7 with a lead.

But, it doesn’t always work out. Just ask Mike Hargrove (1997).

The Dodgers showed what it is to be a champion. The got hit hard, were driven against the ropes, but they never went down.

While watching it all unfold, I thought a little about Paul’s question.

There are several viewpoints and differences between the three organizations that I could make, but I will save most of that for an article later this winter.

So for today, the two biggest takeaways from my perspective are.

Fundamentals. The Dodger executed big time clutch plays at the most high pressure points of each game, as one could imagine. Perfect throws to the plate, heads up double plays from the outfield, 2 strike swings, and yes, even a little luck sprinkled in. But the point is, this Dodger team made the big plays, and the Blue Jays were right there with them.

Both teams exhibited a big time desire to play hard and play the right way. I can’t remember a ball being thrown to the wrong base the entire 7 game series by either team.

I contrast that to what we saw in the Yankee - Blue Jay series and the Yankee - Dodger series, and see a huge difference. Against the Jays in the DS this year we saw Jazz boot a double play, and then catch a relay from the outfield with his back turned to the infield and casually turn around as a runner raced home. Against the Dodgers? I won’t rehash that fifth inning of game 5, but you all know the 3 major mistakes they made, just in game 5, just in 1 inning.

You simply cannot play that way and expect anything different then going home with another years’ worth of “coulda, shoulda woulda’s”.

The second thing that stood out to me was the style of the three managers. Both Roberts and Schneider made multiple decisions that I do not think would have been made by Boone.

They both managed these games with tried and true lessons learned on the field of play. They managed by allowing their players to show their heart and grit. They managed their players with what they knew was below the surface and pumping through their veins.

They didn’t manage their teams based off of pre-game meetings with analytic people that never played beyond the level of little leagues.

They didn’t manage their teams based off of “Lanes” they have predetermined as the point to switch a pitcher.

Why do I think that? Because of the moves made during the games. I’ve seen plenty of the current Yankee way to notice the difference when real baseball trumps analytically driven decisions.

So, at the end of this series, there were plenty of lessons the Yanks could learn from watching these two teams play.

What bothers me the most is, I doubt they will apply any of the lessons they should have learned. Why? Because they have already doubled down on the failed 2018-2025 system heading into 2026.

But who knows, maybe they will (fingers crossed).