Let’s not compare the 2023 Yankees with the 1998 version.

Because pretty much unless you are, say, The Big Red Machine, or a few of the dynastic Yankees clubs, you do not belong in the same sentence as the 1998 Yankees.

And the 2023 Yankees don’t belong even in the same paragraph or chapter, and only were in the same ballpark as the majority of the 1998 squad on Saturday because it was Old-Timers’ Day.

So, why don’t we talk about characteristics beyond talent.

Because no team can win a significant portion of its games without high-level players, and the current Yankees have work to do there, whether it is Jasson Dominguez, Anthony Volpe and Austin Wells even getting to 75 percent of what Bernie Williams, Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada were, or Brian Cashman ending his streak of losing trades and making deals as good as the ones that once brought Tino Martinez and Paul O’Neill here.

Instead, let’s talk about qualities such as baseball IQ and competitiveness. Because those traits helped the 1998 Yankees reach 125 wins, including the postseason.

As Jeter said: “What made the 1998 team great was that every single day we wanted to beat you. … We were competing against ourselves.”

I get it. Every generation thinks the previous generation was inferior. Less tough. Less savvy. It is just human.

But the modern game that has been created — from showcases for scholarships or to get drafted to how players are promoted through the minors — uses a reward system that stresses improving individual skills, with blinders on to all else.

And it’s hard to believe any franchise, from players’ first day in the organization to what is emphasized in the majors, has taken a harder dive philosophically into that approach than the Yankees.

I will offer an example. I asked Clarke Schmidt if, from the moment he was drafted in the 2017 first round, any minor league executive or coach ever talked to him about the mindset and skill set needed to pitch seven innings or more in the majors.

He said no one had until Gerrit Cole spoke with him in the majors. Instead, what led to his promotions was checking boxes regarding individual skills — spin it more, throw it harder, miss bats.

All of that is valuable, but he was being trained to run sprints in the minors and then asked to run a marathon in the majors. No wonder he has struggled to get around a lineup a third time. The improving of individual skills must be used within the context of winning games — something the dynastic Yankees were fantastic at doing. In the majors, the judgment is based on winning.

Sometimes when a pitcher takes the mound, his team’s bullpen was blown out the game before his start and an opener is going the next day. That pitcher’s job is to win, and the most valuable element is to get 21 outs. That is a skill that will be needed in the majors. Schmidt called it “a forgotten part of the game.” He is first learning how to embrace that mindset in real time in the majors after hearing about it from a fellow player.

“We knew our jobs individually,” said Mike Stanton, the superb set-up man from the 1998 team. “And when the game started, it was time to do our job and job No. 1 was: the Yankees need to win today. The approach was whatever it takes. That’s what we did.”

Do you get that vibe from this group? Joe Torre, the manager of that 1998 team, used the word “relentless” to describe his champions. Do you see “relentless” from the current group or do you see a bunch of individuals trying to maximize exit velocity and spin rates, indifferent to the scoreboard?

If you keep training players that baseball is tennis, then you will get tennis players who have no feel for the collective necessities of pitching deep or shortening up to get a runner home from third with fewer than two outs rather than taking three “A” swings as if the scoreboard doesn’t matter.

The Yankees have filled their minor league ranks with theorists who speak the modern lingo.

Beyond Triple-A manager Shelley Duncan, it is hard to find anyone with much major league time. Again, the theorists are important. Learning to maximize skills is vital. But so is readying the whole player for the majors.

Kyle Higashioka will tell you how critical to his career it was to gain so many nuances of the big league game from minor league coaches with significant major league time, such as Jay Bell, Greg Colbrunn and Al Pedrique.

The Yankees pretty much flushed that profile from their minor league ranks in exchange for brainpower with no boots-on-the-ground experience. They need to fix that. They are trying by reintroducing Andy Pettitte to the fold. But Willie Randolph and others are all but begging to offer more. Because at 7 p.m., a debate does not break out, a competition does. And when you ignore the scoreboard as much as the Yankees do, some fight goes out of players.

For example, manager Aaron Boone was asked about similarities between the last two Yankees captains, Jeter and Aaron Judge, and settled on that they were both “killers” — obsessively pursuing wins. I agree with that. Who else would you call a “killer” on these Yankees? Would you call this team competitive? Feisty?

Jeter and Mariano Rivera rightfully earned their distinction as nice guys, but on the field they were assassins. So were Pettitte and Posada and David Cone and Orlando Hernandez and Tino Martinez.

Those guys would fight you out to the Major Deegan to win a baseball game.

That is a talent, too. The Yankees have to figure out how to reclaim that baseball smarts and winning-is-everything fight. Twenty-five years later, the 1998 Yankees not only should be celebrated, but also learned from.