MLB insider twists knife, reminds fans of more key players Dodgers stole from Yankees

Everywhere you looked this year, from the winter to the trade deadline to the hotel bar, there were the Yankees and Dodgers eyeing the same targets. And there were the Dodgers coming away with said targets.

It's no wonder that these two teams ended up clashing on the world's biggest stage. After all, both Andrew Friedman and Brian Cashman attempted to execute the same gameplan this offseason. The only issue is that one came away victorious head-to-head every single time.

Freddie Freeman Zooming with the Yankees several years ago, while a notable call, doesn't rise to the same level as this year's clashes. Of course, Yoshinobu Yamamoto set the blueprint for spurning the Yankees when he squeezed some extra cash out of the Dodgers, his desired destination all along, thanks to Shohei Ohtani's deferrals. From that point forward, the head-to-heads weren't quite so headline-grabbing.

Still, both the Yankees and Dodgers kept coming back to the same names at every opportunity, targeting a massive fleet of the same players, from the Winter Meetings to the Trade Deadline. The Dodgers came away with every target.

Tommy Edman, Kiké Hernández, Michael Kopech all could've been Yankees instead of Dodgers in 2024

As Joel Sherman of the New York Post very helpfully reminded us this week, the Yankees and Dodgers were finalists for postseason icon Kiké Hernández this winter; Hernández, understandably, chose familiarity.

The Yankees showed interest in an injured Tommy Edman at the trade deadline, floating (ironically) Nestor Cortes while looking to make room. Edman was, instead, wisely nabbed by the Dodgers; he's lengthened their lineup all October, earning NLCS MVP after being tacked onto a three-way trade involving reliever Michael Kopech.

Spoiler: the Yankees also wanted him.

All of this is to say that losing out on Yamamoto and spiking a trade for Jack Flaherty hurt the Yankees plainly in the World Series, as both men took Games 1 and 2. The rubbing in one's face doesn't get much clearer than that.

But the Dodgers won the roster-building challenge in multiple forms, including filling out the bench and bullpen with undervalued options. Both the Yankees and Dodgers valued these players properly, but LA won all three 50-50 propositions. That burns.