Yankees Might Be Underrated Contenders Despite Dodgers Dominance | Deadspin.com The Los Angeles Dodgers have taken the throne from the New York Yankees as the most hated team in baseball, if not the entirety of sports. They have taken the old-school Yankee approach of buying every player in the sport and have turned that into back-to-back World Series.
On the other hand, the Yankees have been far quieter in their offseason approaches the last few years. They’re relying on young prospects to continue developing on this team and retaining guys they’ve brought in through trades like David Bednar. They’ve been unwilling to over-expose themselves on top-end talent like Juan Soto, and it might just be working out for them.
New York hasn’t had the most challenging of starts to a season, but they’ve looked like the Evil Empire of old. The offense isn’t incredibly deep at the moment, and will most likely need to add a bat at the deadline if they truly want to be contenders come October, but the pitching looks awfully scary for the Bronx Bombers.
In recent seasons, the pitching has lagged behind the offense, but this year feels like that won’t be the case. The craziest part about this pitching surge is that the Yankees aren’t even close to full strength yet. Max Fried is picking up right where he left off in 2025, with a 1.35 ERA over three starts, and Cam Schlittler and Will Warren aren’t too far behind that mark either.
Those three alone would be scary in the playoffs, but Gerritt Cole and Carlos Rodon have all season to get healthy and join this rotation, which might be the best in baseball.
In the lineup, Ben Rice is taking a massive year three leap, holding an MLB-best 1.380 OPS, and Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, and Cody Bellinger are all having very solid starts to the year. If Jazz Chisolm or Trent Grisham could heat up at the plate, the lineup could be just as good as the Dodgers.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the Yankees might be underrated. I wasn’t high on them entering this season, and I’m willing to admit when I’m wrong. This is a very good Yankee squad. It’s far too early to declare that the AL East might have been overrated, but I won’t be shocked if that’s the case. Each team outside the Yankees currently sits below .500 and has far more obvious roster holes.
The Dodgers have done a great job of shielding the Yankees from “some” amount of criticism in the media entering 2026, and I think that’s great for this team. Get in on the Yankees at +800 to win the World Series, or it might end up being too late.
#Yankees #Underrated #Contenders #Dodgers #Dominance #Deadspin.com
The Los Angeles Dodgers have taken the throne from the New York Yankees as the most hated team in baseball, if not the entirety of sports. They have taken the old-school Yankee approach of buying every player in the sport and have turned that into back-to-back World Series.
On the other hand, the Yankees have been far quieter in their offseason approaches the last few years. They’re relying on young prospects to continue developing on this team and retaining guys they’ve brought in through trades like David Bednar. They’ve been unwilling to over-expose themselves on top-end talent like Juan Soto, and it might just be working out for them.
New York hasn’t had the most challenging of starts to a season, but they’ve looked like the Evil Empire of old. The offense isn’t incredibly deep at the moment, and will most likely need to add a bat at the deadline if they truly want to be contenders come October, but the pitching looks awfully scary for the Bronx Bombers.
In recent seasons, the pitching has lagged behind the offense, but this year feels like that won’t be the case. The craziest part about this pitching surge is that the Yankees aren’t even close to full strength yet. Max Fried is picking up right where he left off in 2025, with a 1.35 ERA over three starts, and Cam Schlittler and Will Warren aren’t too far behind that mark either.
Those three alone would be scary in the playoffs, but Gerritt Cole and Carlos Rodon have all season to get healthy and join this rotation, which might be the best in baseball.
In the lineup, Ben Rice is taking a massive year three leap, holding an MLB-best 1.380 OPS, and Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, and Cody Bellinger are all having very solid starts to the year. If Jazz Chisolm or Trent Grisham could heat up at the plate, the lineup could be just as good as the Dodgers.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the Yankees might be underrated. I wasn’t high on them entering this season, and I’m willing to admit when I’m wrong. This is a very good Yankee squad. It’s far too early to declare that the AL East might have been overrated, but I won’t be shocked if that’s the case. Each team outside the Yankees currently sits below .500 and has far more obvious roster holes.
The Dodgers have done a great job of shielding the Yankees from “some” amount of criticism in the media entering 2026, and I think that’s great for this team. Get in on the Yankees at +800 to win the World Series, or it might end up being too late.
![Vox Creative, Roku debut new docuseries on history of American soccer The history of American soccer has spanned well over 120 years, and to date there hasn’t been many opportunities to look back at that history. With the 2026 World Cup about a month away, we now have a chance to do just that. Yesterday, SB Nation collaborated with Vox Creative and Roku to release Soccer Meets America, a 3-part docuseries that focuses on the rise of soccer in the United States.Soccer Meets America focuses around the meteoric rise in popularity, from the North American Soccer League days of the 1970s and 1980s to the 1984 Olympics, leading up to the 1994 World Cup. At the center of that history was Alan Rothenberg, who served as soccer commissioner for the 1984 Olympics, the president of the U.S. Soccer Federation from 1990 to 1998, and the CEO of the 1994 World Cup. He also had a hand in the start of Major League Soccer, adding women’s soccer to the Olympic program in 1996, and bringing the 1999 Women’s World Cup to the United States.Rothenberg recently released a new book entitled The Big Bounce: The Surge that Shaped the Future of U.S. Soccer. In the book, Rothenberg gives an inside account at how American soccer went from the days where leagues were not organized and fizzled quickly to some of the success we have today with leagues like Major League Soccer, the National Women’s Soccer League, and the United Soccer Leagues. He details his firsthand knowledge of what it took for the United States to host a successful soccer tournament at the 1984 Olympics, how the nation won the bid to host the 1994 World Cup, and how he was able to organize the federation to get everything done and push the game forward. He recently sat down for an interview on the USA Soccercast, and in that interview, he mentioned that the rise in popularity of the game wasn’t based on one big moment, but a sustained buildup of momentum.“[American soccer] sort of grew when I was starting in 1990,” Alan Rothenberg, former U.S. Soccer president and CEO of the 1994 World Cup, said in an interview for the USA Soccercast. “I had a glimpse of it back in the 70s when we had a team in Los Angeles ,and obviously the Cosmos set the world on fire at that time with Pelé and [Franz] Beckebauer…you had Giants Stadium. So there were those glimpses of what the future could hold. But as we started to build the soccer federation, our [1994] World cup team and the World cup organization, it just started to accelerate. So there wasn’t one ‘a ha!’ moment.”Soccer Meets America takes the unique yet unexpected path of professional soccer in the United States andn gives the story some definition. Through people like Rothenberg, we see that the history is shaped by chance, persistence, and communities that kept the game alive long before it found mainstream recognition. Starting with the sport’s deep roots in immigrant communities in the 1920s, each episode of the docuseries explores soccer on a personal and professional level. Both nostalgic and forward-facing, the series features a variety of influential figures in American soccer and aims to resonate with new and old fans of the sport alike.But there’s also the legacy of the 2026 World Cup, which will be different from what it was in 1994. “Well, obviously we’re starting from a different baseline,” Rothenberg said. “We started at virtually zero back in [1990], and now we’re starting from level 60 or 75…so the dramatic consequences will not be the same as they were after 94, but I think it’s going to be a huge spike in interest in the sport at all levels.”To grow the history, you must learn from it. And Soccer Meets America gives you a review of America’s soccer history and strengthes the foundations from which the sport’s culture and passion were created. As we approach the World Cup, that knowledge will be essential to craft the legacy that will carry long after the tournament ends. #Vox #Creative #Roku #debut #docuseries #history #American #soccer](https://i3.wp.com/platform.sbnation.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/gettyimages-2273772608.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C10.740350081171%2C100%2C78.519299837658&w=1200&ssl=1 "Vox Creative, Roku debut new docuseries on history of American soccer The history of American soccer has spanned well over 120 years, and to date there hasn’t been many opportunities to look back at that history. With the 2026 World Cup about a month away, we now have a chance to do just that. Yesterday, SB Nation collaborated with Vox Creative and Roku to release Soccer Meets America, a 3-part docuseries that focuses on the rise of soccer in the United States.Soccer Meets America focuses around the meteoric rise in popularity, from the North American Soccer League days of the 1970s and 1980s to the 1984 Olympics, leading up to the 1994 World Cup. At the center of that history was Alan Rothenberg, who served as soccer commissioner for the 1984 Olympics, the president of the U.S. Soccer Federation from 1990 to 1998, and the CEO of the 1994 World Cup. He also had a hand in the start of Major League Soccer, adding women’s soccer to the Olympic program in 1996, and bringing the 1999 Women’s World Cup to the United States.Rothenberg recently released a new book entitled The Big Bounce: The Surge that Shaped the Future of U.S. Soccer. In the book, Rothenberg gives an inside account at how American soccer went from the days where leagues were not organized and fizzled quickly to some of the success we have today with leagues like Major League Soccer, the National Women’s Soccer League, and the United Soccer Leagues. He details his firsthand knowledge of what it took for the United States to host a successful soccer tournament at the 1984 Olympics, how the nation won the bid to host the 1994 World Cup, and how he was able to organize the federation to get everything done and push the game forward. He recently sat down for an interview on the USA Soccercast, and in that interview, he mentioned that the rise in popularity of the game wasn’t based on one big moment, but a sustained buildup of momentum.“[American soccer] sort of grew when I was starting in 1990,” Alan Rothenberg, former U.S. Soccer president and CEO of the 1994 World Cup, said in an interview for the USA Soccercast. “I had a glimpse of it back in the 70s when we had a team in Los Angeles ,and obviously the Cosmos set the world on fire at that time with Pelé and [Franz] Beckebauer…you had Giants Stadium. So there were those glimpses of what the future could hold. But as we started to build the soccer federation, our [1994] World cup team and the World cup organization, it just started to accelerate. So there wasn’t one ‘a ha!’ moment.”Soccer Meets America takes the unique yet unexpected path of professional soccer in the United States andn gives the story some definition. Through people like Rothenberg, we see that the history is shaped by chance, persistence, and communities that kept the game alive long before it found mainstream recognition. Starting with the sport’s deep roots in immigrant communities in the 1920s, each episode of the docuseries explores soccer on a personal and professional level. Both nostalgic and forward-facing, the series features a variety of influential figures in American soccer and aims to resonate with new and old fans of the sport alike.But there’s also the legacy of the 2026 World Cup, which will be different from what it was in 1994. “Well, obviously we’re starting from a different baseline,” Rothenberg said. “We started at virtually zero back in [1990], and now we’re starting from level 60 or 75…so the dramatic consequences will not be the same as they were after 94, but I think it’s going to be a huge spike in interest in the sport at all levels.”To grow the history, you must learn from it. And Soccer Meets America gives you a review of America’s soccer history and strengthes the foundations from which the sport’s culture and passion were created. As we approach the World Cup, that knowledge will be essential to craft the legacy that will carry long after the tournament ends. #Vox #Creative #Roku #debut #docuseries #history #American #soccer")
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