LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers are favored in this World Series, and the only thing I can figure is that oddsmakers are looking at a months-old roster.
Sure, the Dodgers — oddly, a minus-130 favorite via BetMGM — have an honest-to-goodness All-Star team of pitchers under their employ to go with the best top third of a lineup ever, starting of course with the incomparable Shohei Ohtani (the Yankees might be second best there). But that’s only if you count all those fantastic starting pitchers who are out due to injuries (many, listed below) or inexplicable underperformance (one more, also below).
Of course, if everyone’s healthy and available, nobody beats these Dodgers, which is why I picked them as World Series winners in The Post’s season preview section. But now that two $300M juggernaut teams are facing off in this starry, megamarket World Series, there’s only one choice, and it’s the Yankees. Among the sound and the actives, they are simply better.
Yes, the annually, chronically disabled Bronx team is remarkably healthy. And for a change, that’s their big edge. While the Yankees will be fielding basically their full roster (I’m not counting DJ LeMahieu, who never looked right in 2024), the Dodgers rotation is being pieced together with bandages and prayers to that oft-cited big Dodger in the sky.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts is beating his Yankees counterpart, Aaron Boone, to name starters but only because he has so few choices. With a full rotation of accomplished to all-time great starters limited to watching from the dugout or their home digs, Roberts’ options are ridiculously limited.
Roberts, the most-criticized successful manager ever (Boone is probably second there) despite an MLB-record 102 wins a year and a fourth World Series appearance in eight years, has only three possible arms to start games before he considers who’s best suited to open the bullpen game that will be necessary. It’s a talented trio (every Dodger seemingly is) but even they don’t seem close to 100 percent.
Jack Flaherty, who gets the ball in Game 1, just as he did in the NLCS against the Mets, was rejected by the Yankees due to an alleged lower back ailment that caused them to back away from a potential trade with Detroit at the deadline. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who the Yankees once mistakenly thought they were getting but who apparently always wanted to be a Dodger, is a diminished Game 2 starter since his return from a shoulder concern. And expected Game 3 starter Walker Buehler looks nothing like himself since coming back from his second Tommy John surgery.
“Dodgers pitching is short … Yankees in 6,” says a National League scout.
While that assessment also is short, it says it.
Follow The Post’s coverage of the Yankees in the postseason:
- Sherman: Yankees can turn this advantage into World Series-winning formula
- How slumping Yankee can help win World Series despite cold streak
- Heyman: The ‘short’ reason underdog Yankees will conquer Dodgers in World Series
- For Brian Cashman’s ‘consigliere,’ this World Series is a full-circle moment
Really, it’s a wonder the Dodgers made it this far with these sort of pitching problems. Sure, if any of the talented foursome of Tyler Glasnow, Clayton Kershaw, Gavin Stone and Tony Gonsolin (not to mention Dustin May, Emmet Sheehan and River Ryan) were healthy, or the inexplicably underachieving uber-talented Bobby Miller ready, they’d be able to avoid the dreaded bullpen game. They needed one against the Padres and two against the Mets, and it’s hard to see how they avoid at least one in the World Series. While they are 2-1 in these games of desperation, it’s bound to catch up to their excellent bullpen arms at some point.
“I think the Yankees expose the lack of starters for LA and their bullpen won’t be quite as big an advantage against the Yankees lineup,” one NL coach says. “Seems like it lined up perfect against the Mets. They will get more looks at them and that same script won’t happen against the Yankees.”
Ah yes, the Mets. They moved three levels beyond what anyone but their baseball president David Stearns expected, and truth teller J.D. Martinez, while disappointed after the Dodgers eliminated them, honestly admitted they were playing with “house money” by getting to the final four. And their starters weren’t the same by the very end, either. Putting aside Kodai Senga, who should have stayed on the back fields in Port St. Lucie, new ace Sean Manaea set a personal innings record and his velocity was down, and Luis Severino threw as many innings as he had since 2018 as a phenom back in The Bronx.
The Yankees, meantime, headed into October after clinching the division with a week to go, they got a bye and had up to six viable starters to choose from, including Marcus Stroman and Nestor Cortes, who seems anxious to sacrifice his career for a ring (must be a big jewelry fan — just kidding, good for him!). All but Carlos Rodon, unhittable as long he doesn’t get unhinged, is pretty light on innings this year due to time off.
No one’s feeling perfect at this stage, but a rotation of Gerrit Cole, Rodon, Clarke Schmidt and Luis Gil looks like a winner when compared to a Dodgers rotation that’s in shambles and will prove to be their undoing.
