The World Series exposed...the Yankees.

Congratulations to the Milwaukee Brewers— 

(Even if their longtime owner did manage to wreck the 1994 season, turn a blind eye to a generation of juicing, and stand there hopelessly unable to determine how to break a tie in the All-Star Game, in his wholly compromised role as commissioner. This Bud IS you, Mr. Selig.)—

—though reportedly, the Brewers' fine manager, Pat Murphy, asked Jake Bauers, the surprise hero of the postseason, if he wasn't glad he was no longer with that "selfish" Yankees team that played the game the wrong way.

This quote sounds so bizarre that I question its veracity. Among other things, Mr. Bauers stunk up the joint as a Yankee, a Mariner, an Indian, and a Ray, before turning in a .199 first year in Milwaukee.  

The shock is not that Brian Cashman let him go, but that he didn't throw $22 million at him. 

Well, good for Jake Bauers. And good for Pat Murphy. The both deserve their rings. But here are 10(?) observations on how it was the Yankees who were really exposed by this World Series.

—After an ALDS in which they kept the Yanks from so much as taking a lead for one inning, much less winning a game, the TB Rays had to grind out an ALCS against the Cleveland Guardians of Traffic, then were steamrolled by the Brewers. 

—In the Series, the Rays hit .182 with 1 home run and only 5 stolen bases in 9 attempts, and committed 3 errors. They played poorly in every aspect of the game. Their starting pitchers lasted a combined 21 1/3 innings, or fewer than 5 per start, and surrendered 13 earned runs in that time.

—There was no reason to think they would do much better. While the Rays had the best record in the American League, they were only third in total WAR, at 7.9, behind both the Red Sox (14.6) and your New York Yankees (13.8).  

—At no position, save for José Caminero at third, did the Rays field the best player at that position. In fact, save for RF, where they were second, no Ray ranked no higher than fifth in the league at any position.

—The greatest disparity between the Rays and the Yankees came in pitching, which is almost always the difference in baseball. The Yanks, boasting their best starting pitching in 25 years, and what rounded into a highly effective bullpen, were at 13.4 in pitching WAR. The Rays were merely 7th in the AL, at 1.9.

—In other words, with pitching ranked almost TEN TIMES better than Tampa Bay's, the Yankees could not get closer than within 4 1/2 games of the Rays over the regular season, or snag so much as a lead during their playoff series. I don't know if this has ever happened before in the history of baseball, but I would bet that it has not. 

—For all the talk about "selfishness" in the Yankees' clubhouse, or Cashman's magical ability to deflect the fault to Aaron Judge—"He said nice things about Verdugo!"...Tampa Bay did not display any great advantage over the Yanks in almost any statistical category, throughout the season.

—In team fielding, the Rays fielded .984, the Yanks, .983. Tampa Bay made 4 fewer errors—the Yankees pulled off 23 more double-plays. 

—In team batting the Rays led with an OPS of .728 to .720, and an OPS+ of 103-101—hardly huge differences. The Yankees actually scored more runs, 739-736, and outhomered TB, 223-169. Tampa Bay had all of 11 more steals, 164-153.

—The one big statistical difference came in clutch hitting. TB outhit the Yanks, .258-.235. Also, the Yankees were second in the AL in most strikeouts, at 1,480 and last in total hits, with 1,250. Tampa Bay, by contrast, had the fewest strikeouts in the league, at 1,145, and led all American League teams with 1,405 hits.

—In other words, here is where Cashman's disastrous insistence on playing "Three True Outcomes" baseball came clearly into play. The Rays struck out 335 fewer times, and out of those 355 at-bats, slashed 155 more hits, for an average of .463 "non-strikeout hits." (Stat patent pending.)

—Throughout the World Series, the broadcasters (and everyone else) heaped praise upon the Brewers and Rays for playing baseball "like it should be played," and rightly so. 

But it's worth pointing out that the two teams in the Series just last fall—and what were obviously the two best teams in their respective leagues in 2025, the Blue Jays and the Dodgers—hit home runs by the bushelful, belting 191 and 244, respectively, during the regular season, and combining for another 19 during their seven-game set.

—In other words, there are many ways to play winning baseball. Brian Cashman is bad at all of them. 

—It's not just that the Yankees stick rigidly with "Three True Outcomes" ball. It's that they don't know how to play that, either.  

—The key to the Yanks' failure this postseason was that they had at least five players in their starting lineups—Austin Wells, Ryan McMahon, Jazz Chisholm, Anthony Volpe, and Trent Grisham—who had no business being there, after their repeated and abject failures all season, and in the recent past.

—Remarkably, three of those players—Jazz, Volpe, and Wells—had also made critical mistakes in the infamous, Fifth Inning Fiasco of the 2024 World Series. Two of them, along with McMahon and Grisham, were on the field to make equally disastrous flubs in the first inning of the critical, Game Two of the 2026 ALDS. 

—Even more incredibly, the Yanks managed to exhaust their pinch-runners by the end of the final game in that series, put a chronically injured player who had not batted since the end of April up in the two most crucial at-bats of the season, and ended it with Trent Grisham—a player not only injured but awful—up there for the last out, in a one-run game.

The only conclusion possible from all this is that the Yankees—despite one of the greatest advantages in pitching ever seen in their league playoffs—did not even get to the ALCS not because their players were "selfish," or their clubhouse atmosphere was bad, or Aaron Judge said nice things about his teammates, or even because of the general incompetence of Aaron Boone (incompetent managers having won plenty of World Series).

It was because their general manager, Brian Cashman, made once again the same mistakes that he makes year after year, and failed to put the right players on the field—.even after their proven failures in the recent past.