There will be no postseason this year for the Yankees, but there is for some future Yankees.

And no, we’re not talking about Cody Bellinger, Kevin Kiermaier or any free agents-to-be this offseason. We’re talking about minor league playoffs.

The Yankees’ High-A affiliate, Hudson Valley, and Double-A affiliate, Somerset, made the playoffs in their respective leagues this month.

Does that matter?

In almost all cases, development is more important than winning in the minor leagues. But can winning — or at least playing in meaningful games like the playoffs — be a tool in that development?

“I always think that’s part of the development,” Yankees bench coach Carlos Mendoza, a former minor league coach and manager, said this week. “Yeah, it’s a long season and guys are working on different things throughout the year. But winning makes it better, especially playing meaningful games, playoffs, that atmosphere. I remember going back a few years when I was in the minor leagues, not only as a player but as a coach, a manager, playing those games means a lot. I think the work you put in day in and day out, especially in the minor leagues, it’s such a grind. To be able to have that experience is huge.”

Winning seasons in the minor leagues are not always indicative of having strong prospect talent. Sometimes the winningest teams are filled with older journeymen who may not be bound for the big leagues.

But for those prospects who do find themselves on winning teams, playing postseason baseball can provide a taste of playing in pressurized games — as much as there can be in the minors.

It’s one thing to get at-bats or pitch in a meaningless July game. It’s another to do it when it’s win or go home.

“In the minor leagues, you can kind of get caught up in, ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter if we win or lose,’” Kyle Higashioka said. “But at least when I was coming up, we’ve done a great job instilling that mindset of: ‘We’re trying to win and develop.’ For me, it was pretty valuable playing those must-win games and getting at least some pressure situations where it’s like win or go home. … Because when you come up here, you don’t want to have to flip a light switch and be like, ‘Oh, now I’m doing whatever it takes to win, but I’ve never done that in my career before.’

“Definitely it was important for us coming up — me, [Aaron] Judge and Sevy [Luis Severino] and all those guys we came up with. I think it’s still very important. You don’t want the first time you’re really trying to win at all costs [to be] in the big leagues.”

Last week, Hudson Valley — featuring prospects Brock Selvidge, Jared Serna and Anthony Hall — won a best-of-three division series against the Phillies’ High-A affiliate before falling in the championship series to the Red Sox’s affiliate.

This week, Somerset squared off against the Mets’ Double-A affiliate in an Eastern League division series, with prospects such as Spencer Jones, Trey Sweeney, Ben Rice and Richard Fitts getting playoff reps.

Unfortunately for the Yankees, top pitching prospect Drew Thorpe missed the series due to an injury to his non-throwing shoulder.

“Those are super-valuable and memorable,” said Clarke Schmidt, who along with Michael King and Greg Weissert won an Eastern League championship in 2019 with then-Double-A Trenton. “It’s not like crazy high-pressure, end of the world. But you’re trying to go out there and win those games. You have a lot of pride in that. To be able to win that, I have a ton of memories with those guys. A lot of the guys that were on that team are guys that are on this team or guys that I still keep in touch with. Those memories last forever. I think just being in that atmosphere where it’s like, ‘You have to win this game,’ is good for development for kids, for sure.”

Nothing can fully prepare prospects for the pressure that comes with playing in the big leagues — not to mention major league playoff games. But until they get there, playing in higher-importance games in the minors can’t hurt.

“When you’re playing in those games, that’s usually as much of a pressure situation as you can feel [in the minors],” Weissert said. “It’s definitely nice to have those reps when the game means a lot more than a regular-season game. I think it’s beneficial for sure.”

And sometimes there’s even a side benefit of winning in the minors, beyond what it can do for development.

Higashioka earned a couple of rings on his way through the Yankees’ minor league system, including in 2016 when Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre won the national championship (a series between the International League winners and Pacific Coast League winners). Wednesday marked the seven-year anniversary of that game, and the RailRiders returned home the day after to a surprise.

“I got a plaque from the Lackawanna County Commissioner signifying Sept. 21 as ‘Kyle Higashioka Day,’” Higashioka said. “He gave one to every member of the team. So that day is everyone’s day. But the plaque says it’s ‘Kyle Higashioka Day.’

“I mean, it’s pretty hilarious,” he added with a laugh. “It’s like, ‘OK.’”

Want to catch a game? The Yankees schedule with links to buy tickets can be found here.

As he sat in the visiting dugout on Sunday morning at PNC Park, with his team having won 14 of its last 19 games to pull itself back to the periphery of the wild-card race, Aaron Boone was asked whether he ever played the what-if game, given how the standings looked at the time.

The Yankees have had some deep-rooted problems exposed this season, yet if even a handful of results had been reversed over the course of 162 games, they still could have given themselves a real shot to make the playoffs.

“I think you occasionally do look back on a game here or there like, ‘Man, we had that,’” Boone said. “But you can kind of do that every year, usually, in a 162-game season where you’ve had a crushing defeat or, ‘We had this game.’ So I do it very little, but it did come up the other day.”

Boone did not say which games in particular he thought of during that exercise, but when asked whether the Yankees’ brutal loss to the Marlins in mid-August was included, he said, “Of course.”

That’s certainly in the top five most excruciatingly painful losses the Yankees have taken this season, five games that got away and contributed to them being eliminated from playoff contention as early as Friday night.

Here’s a look at those five games, by our count:

May 7: Rays 8, Yankees 7 (10 innings)

The Yankees led this game 6-0 in the fifth inning with Gerrit Cole on the mound and a chance to take the series against the red-hot Rays at Tropicana Field. Instead, Cole’s outing went off the rails in the sixth — with Boone second-guessing not pulling him earlier — before the Rays walked off on Albert Abreu in the 10th.

May 24: Orioles 9, Yankees 6

The Yankees led 5-1 entering the seventh inning, putting them nine outs away from extending their winning streak to six games. But their momentum was cut short in brutal fashion as the Orioles scored eight runs in the top of the seventh — three against Nestor Cortes, four against Jimmy Cordero and one against Abreu.

July 9: Cubs 7, Yankees 4

Despite an up-and-down first half, the Yankees were close to going into the All-Star break on a high note with a series win. They led 4-1 entering the seventh inning when Domingo German walked the leadoff man and, at 74 pitches, was pulled by Boone. A Gleyber Torres fielding error helped the Cubs tie the game against Ian Hamilton and Tommy Kahnle before they took the lead for good in the eighth against Ron Marinaccio and Clay Holmes.

July 16: Rockies 8, Yankees 7 (11 innings)

The first series out of the break didn’t end much better. Once again, the Yankees had a chance to win the series and led the rubber game 3-1 going to the bottom of the eighth. Kahnle loaded the bases before Holmes allowed his first home run of the season, a grand slam. The Yankees tied it with two runs in the top of the ninth and then took the lead with two runs in the top of the 11th, only to lose it in the bottom of the inning when Nick Ramirez and Marinaccio each gave up home runs.

Aug. 13: Marlins 8, Yankees 7

This game marked the beginning of the end for the Yankees. They took a 7-3 lead into the bottom of the ninth of — you guessed it — a rubber game and blew it. Holmes did most of the damage, with his throwing error escalating the inning before Kahnle entered and allowed the winning run to score from third. The game spiraled into a nine-game losing streak that effectively killed the Yankees’ season.

When the Yankees visit Pittsburgh again in 2025, take note of who goes to the Roberto Clemente Museum and holds one of Clemente’s old bats.

Last year, Higashioka did it. He then homered in his next game.

Late last Friday night, Oswaldo Cabrera visited the museum — on a private tour set up by hitting coach Sean Casey — and held one of Clemente’s bats. He then went deep on Saturday for his first home run since June 3.

“When I got to the dugout, I was with [Estevan] Florial, and Florial was like, ‘The bat! The bat!’” Cabrera said. “I was like, ‘The bat? Oh, the bat!’”