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Yankees versus Dodgers in the 2024 World Series is a renewal of an old school October rivalry that began back in a baseball Golden Age, but is remixed for the modern era. That means we’ll see at least one bullpen game and newfangled pitching plans galore.
Starters will be carefully watched and only a select few — maybe Gerrit Cole? — will see the same hitter a third time through the lineup. There won’t be any Don Larsen redux, most likely.
But there will be incredible star power, so much so that fans ought to show up in tuxedos and gowns like it’s some kind of diamond Oscar ceremony. Heck, it’s a TV execs fever dream, the two biggest markets meeting for the 12th time — the most ever — in the Fall Classic.
The expected MVPs of each league — Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani — form a boldface-name centerpiece. Neither has played in the World Series before. It’s the first time ever that two sluggers who mashed 50-plus homers during the regular season are facing off with these stakes. Oh yeah, Ohtani was also the first 50-homer, 50-steals player in history this year.
In total, there will be five former position-player MVPs in the Series – Judge, Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Giancarlo Stanton. Cole is a reigning Cy Young winner. Juan Soto is this generation’s Ted Williams. Both teams also boast supporting casts that can tilt the series – just ask the Dodgers and NLCS MVP Tommy Edman.
It’s two iconic teams, and, this year, the best teams in each league, head-to-head, for everything. Yankees-Dodgers started in 1941, but this is the first time they’ve met in the World Series since 1981. East Coast vs. West Coast transplants from Brooklyn?
Sumptuous baseball feast incoming.
What the Yankees have going for them
Power and patience, to start. And — lecture alert — stop talking about how power doesn’t win games in October. Teams to out-homer opponents this postseason are 21-7 (.750), according to Sarah Langs of MLB.com. Last year, that mark was 25-4 (.862).
And the Yankees can hit ‘em far. Stanton (four), Soto (three) and Judge (two) combined to hit nine of the Yanks’ 10 home runs in the ALCS (they out-homered Cleveland, 10-5). It was rocket dagger after rocket dagger, too.
Stanton, the ALCS MVP who has five homers and 11 RBI in the postseason, has his October swing tuned. Soto (1.106 postseason OPS) is showing that whatever the number he commands on his upcoming free agent contract, it’s probably not enough.
The Yanks have clogged the bases with traffic all postseason — looks like an LA freeway out there, am I right? — thanks to patient at-bats, and other slots in the batting order perked up to help the big guys. Anthony Volpe (.459 on-base percentage in the postseason) and Gleyber Torres (.400 OBP) have been huge.
Cole (3.31 ERA in three starts) is the one starting pitcher in the whole Fall Classic who profiles like the kind of ace this matchup used to boast. He’s no Sandy Koufax or Whitey Ford, of course, but Cole could actually give the Yankee bullpen a break one night by throwing seven innings. He did it in the ALDS against the Royals, though his other two starts haven’t been nearly as sharp.
So there will be a burden on the Yanks’ pen, which mostly has delivered so far, though workload concerns will loom — Clay Holmes and Luke Weaver have appeared in eight of nine postseason games, for instance. But Yankee relievers have been a strength, going 5-1 with a 2.56 ERA and five saves in eight chances. Pen wobbles ruined Game 3 in the ALCS, when Holmes and Weaver gave up late homers, relegating dramatic blasts by Judge and Stanton to sidebar status.
What the Dodgers have going for them
This will sound familiar – power and patience. The Dodgers out-homered the Mets, 11-5, in the NLCS. They scored 46 runs in six games (7.67 per), the most ever scored in an NLCS. They drew 42 walks, an MLB record for a single postseason series. Ohtani and Max Muncy each reached base safely 17 times in the NLCS to set a club mark.
Their relentless offense overwhelmed the Mets — they turned the lineup over so many times it seemed like Ohtani, their leadoff hitter, batted in every inning. Crazy thing about their attack — they had several other NLCS MVP candidates in addition to Edman (.407, 11 RBI, 1.022 OPS). Muncy (1.363), Ohtani (1.185) and Betts (1.182) all had a higher OPS. Betts had nine RBI.
Freeman, who is nursing a right ankle injury, is clearly not himself at the plate. But he did not play in Game 6 against the Mets, so he could be better-healed for the World Series, which would make Los Angeles’ lineup even scarier.
By the way, are you comfortable with lefties such as Ohtani, Muncy, and Freeman in the middle three games at Yankee Stadium, with that short right field porch beckoning?
The Dodgers bullpen is also key, though, and their relievers have worked the most October innings. That’s what happens when one of your strategies is the bullpen game, but that’s helped them get this far.
Will they do it once or twice in this series? The Los Angeles relief corps is 5-0 with three saves in three chances and has a 3.16 ERA this October.
Blake Treinen, Michael Kopech and company will figure heavily in the Fall Classic. Will Los Angeles get lefty Alex Vesia (1.76 ERA this year), who missed the NLCS with injury, back? He could face Soto in a pivotal moment.
The Yankees will win if…
Their rotation offers enough length to keep the brand-name pinstriped relievers at least reasonably rested. That means Cole, Carlos Rodón, Clarke Schmidt and Luis Gil need to produce bulk, in terms of innings — Cole and Rodón, especially. And Schmidt and Gil can’t be three-and-flee, either. Weaver, as unhittable as he can be, has already thrown 10.1 innings, which is the most of any reliever in the postseason.
Here’s another path to victory: Judge finally wrecks an October series. Another familiar theme, yes. Judge is 5-for-31 (.161) with 13 strikeouts and a .704 OPS so far. He has two home runs, a reminder of the damage he’s capable of doing, but the Yankees will need more from him if they are to overcome the Dodgers’ non-stop lineup.
Jazz Chisholm Jr. — who is hitting just .147 average with 11 strikeouts this October — breaking out would help, too.
The Dodgers will win if…
Jack Flaherty (a midsummer Yankees trade target) and Yoshinobu Yamamoto provide some innings. If those two and Walker Buehler somehow give the Dodgers 25 reasonable innings of rotation work over a combined five starts, is that enough runway for their bullpen to dominate late and let their lineup cook?
Or maybe their lineup will have to do most of the work itself. Here’s a reminder how good it is — In six games against the Mets, obviously one of the best teams in baseball, they scored eight-plus runs four times, all wins. In the other two, they scored three and six.
In the NLCS, the Dodgers — again, against one of the best teams in baseball — had a .395 on-base percentage and an .854 OPS. Overall in the 2024 season, the MLB averages were .312 on-base and .711 OPS.
Prediction
Yankees in seven games
Patching pitching together this late in the year makes it open season for the kind brawny lineup each team owns. The Yankees have a rotation advantage and, even if their bullpen isn’t on par with the Dodgers, it’s pretty darn close.
Another seven game series with Dave Roberts and LA’s big brains having to figure out how to get 27 outs each night seems like a recipe for a big Yankee swing to smash open a series — maybe it’ll even be Judge who does it.
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