Why the New York Yankees Haven't Won the World Series in Five Years

For the fifth year in a row the Yankees have not won the World Series despite having had the highest payroll in baseball in each of the five years. Why are the Yankees not winning World Series? While much of the blame has been aimed at their manager, Joe Torre, the logical reason has more to do with the make-up of their starting pitching.

The Yankees, historically, do very well and win World Series when they have at least one dominant left-handed starter on the staff. This year's version of that, Randy Johnson, was anything but dominating, finishing the year with a 5.00 ERA. When the Yankees needed him to start at home in the first round of this year's playoffs, where the park configurations best suit the dominant lefty, Johnson's 43 year old body was not up to the task, and his start had to be pushed back to a road game.

Why do the Yankees need a Dominant Lefty?

Both the old and the new Yankee Stadium greatly favor left handed starting pitchers due to the dimensions. With a deep center field, and left-center field, a left handed pitcher has a huge advantage versus right handed batters in Yankee Stadium, as many well hit balls are simply outs in the spacious left and left-center outfield. It is a huge advantage for left handed pitchers and the Yankees have done a tremendous job, historically, exploiting the advantage.

Yankee Left Handers and World Series Wins, a Look Back

The Yankees lost the World Series in both 1921 and 1922. Neither club had a dominant left handed starter. In 1923 the Yankees added lefty Herb Pennock and won the World Series. Pennock was also on the 1926 and 1927 World Series Championship teams as well.

The 1932 Championship team featured Pennock, along with another dominant southpaw, Lefty Gomez. Gomez was also a mainstay on the 1936-1939 Championship teams.

The 1941 Championship team had lefty Marius Russo on board, but it was also a war championship.

The 1947 Championship is the only Yankee Championship team that did not have a lefty starter on its roster, but that team did have lefty Joe Page out of the bullpen, and he won a World Series game that year and saved another.

The 1949 WS Champs had Eddie Lopat and Tommy Byrne. The 1950 WS Champs had Lopat and Whitey Ford. The 1951 and '52 WS Champs had Lopat. And the '53 team had Lopat and Ford.

Whitey Ford was the Yankees dominant lefty on the WS Championship teams of 1956, '58, '61 and '62. Lefty Bud Daley was also on the '61 and '62 teams, and Luis Arroyo was on the '61 team as well.

The Yankee Championship teams of 1977 and '78 featured Ron Guidry, with Don Gullet also on the '77 team.

The 1996 Champs had both Jimmy Key and Andy Pettite.

The 1998 Champs had both Pettite and David Wells. While Pettite continued to be the mainstay on the 1999 and 2000 Championship teams.

The evidence is pretty clear, The NY Yankees win Championships when they have at least one dominant left-handed starter on the team. The 2006 Yankees lacked that dominant lefty, and the team with the highest payroll in baseball made an embarrassing early exit from the post season.

In order to win a Championship next season, the Yankees must add a dominant left handed starter to their rotation, or they will, once again, not win a Championship despite having the biggest payroll in baseball.

The failure of this year's team belongs to the front office. In the last few years the Yankees have made two terrible free agent signings. Carl Pavano and Jaret Wright (who was awful in the 4th game of the Tiger series this year) are two right-handed starters the Yankees signed to big money contracts. Neither is going to win the Yankees a Championship. The Yankees have also failed to develop any young left-handed starters who could have lead them to Championhips, like Ron Guidry and Andy Pettite did.