Yankees: 4 Best NYY Teams That Didn’t Win the World Series

Recency bias? Sure. Also, the 2019 Yankees withstood every possible injury, still won 103 games, and had the mojo of a champion.

Surely, you envisioned this team winning the World Series a few different times during the season. Perhaps when Brett Gardner and Mike Ford went back-to-back to stun the A’s, you turned to your buddy with a glint in your eye.

Maybe when they mounted a stunning comeback to sweep the Red Sox in London, you called your dad and dared to dream. And when Masahiro Tanaka walked off the mound in Houston in Game 1 of the ALCS, you definitely let optimism become overconfidence.

Duh. Of course you did. This team had it.

Alas, when they ran into the mountain that’s blocked them repeatedly throughout this new era of Yankees baseball, the final frontier, they fell victim once again to, ahem, heightened technology.

The worst part of this gut punch will always be its lingering illegitimacy. In 2017, when the Yankees lost a World Series berth in similar fashion, it became clear the next week that that scrappy team would’ve been outclassed by the Dodgers, who simply had more fighters at every turn.

In 2019? The Yankees were better than the Astros, point blank, and then a devastating slate of Recent Yankees Playoff Stuff befell them right at the precipice. Clutch hitting disappeared, the last pitcher on the roster faltered, and we went home empty-handed yet again.

But we shouldn’t have. And you know it.