Dodgers were well prepared for Yankees' lack of fundamentals

The New York Yankees assembled an outstanding team on paper during the 2024 season that was full of All-Stars and big names. They did not always play like it, consistently demonstrating poor fundamentals in the field and on the bases throughout the regular season and playoffs.

Those issues really showed themselves in a Game 5 meltdown in the World Series as they let a 5-0 lead turn into a 7-6 series-deciding defeat. 

The Los Angeles Dodgers were well aware of the Yankees' flaws, and made sure their players were prepared to take advantage of them. 

The "New York Post's" Joel Sherman detailed the Dodgers' scouting report on the Yankees on Thursday evening, and highlighted everything Los Angeles knew to take advantage of from the Yankees' short leads on the bases, to the poor positioning of their outfielders, to the way relay throws were consistently improperly executed.

From the Post:

What the Dodgers told their players in scouting meetings was the Yankees were talent over fundamentals. That if you run the bases with purpose and aggression, the Yankees will self-inflict harm as was exposed by Betts, Tommy Edman, Freddie Freeman, etc. That the value was very high to put the ball in play to make the Yankees execute. They mentioned that the Yankees were not just the majors’ worst baserunning team by every metric, but the difference was vast on the field between them and the Padres, who the Dodgers beat in the NL Division Series, but were impressive in this area.

The lack of fundamentals was fully on display in the top of the fifth inning when center fielder Aaron Judge dropped a routine foul ball, shortstop Anthony Volpe was guilty of a throwing error to third base and starting pitcher Gerrit Cole failed to cover first base on a ground ball that could have ended the inning with zero runs scoring in the inning.

The Dodgers ended up scoring five to tie the game and completely flip the game around. 

Later in the game the Yankees were called for catchers interference, and that does not even get into the baserunning blunders and other mistakes from earlier games in the series.

The overall theme in the Dodgers' scouting report was that the Yankees relied on talent over fundamentals.

Talent is important, and over a 162 game season talent will ultimately win out. If you have Aaron Judge, Juan Soto and Giancarlo Stanton in your lineup you can out-homer teams and beat inferior teams based on having the talent advantage.

The problem the Yankees had was when they ran into the one team that had as much talent as them — if not more talent — and was able to actually play fundamental baseball. Those things still matter in a best-of-seven series where mistakes are magnified.

If you lose one game in April because of an error or baserunning mistake, you have 161 games — many of which will come against teams worse than you — to balance it out.

You have no such luck in the playoffs, and especially not in the World Series. The Yankees found that out the hard way this week.