This year’s Yankees, who won three total playoff games and did not escape the division series, are better than the AL champs of 2024.

Last year’s team received a cakewalk to the World Series having to face the kind of AL Central patsies — Kansas City and Cleveland — that the Yankees have mauled during the Aaron Judge era. The Royals were under .500 last year if you removed the 12-1 mark they posted against the 121-loss White Sox.

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This is not that bold a statement, really. The 2017, 2019 and 2022 Yankees also were better than the 2024 Yankees and each fell short in the ALCS to the Astros.

And there’s the commonality — it is about the competition. At some point, these Yankees face an October opponent that does not wilt at their presence and outplays them. It was in the World Series last year and the division series this season. Giancarlo Stanton, as sage a presence as these Yankees have, noted after elimination that, “The distance you go is really the timing and the execution of these games.”