Dodgers’ World Series Champion Takes Another Shot at Yankees

Despite throwing zero pitches during the Los Angeles Dodgers’ 2024 championship run, Joe Kelly keeps firing shots at the New York Yankees.

The veteran reliever believes that the Yankees should be grateful that the MLB postseason is seeded by standings-only; Kelly tore into the Bronx Bombers during an appearance on the “Baseball Isn’t Boring” podcast, claiming that they wouldn’t have earned a top spot if the bracket was determined through a poll.

“It was just a mismatch from the get-go,” Kelly told host Rob Bradford. “If we had a playoff re-ranking, they would be ranked the eighth or ninth-best playoff team. You’re putting the [San Diego] Padres ahead of them, you’re putting the [Philadelphia] Phillies ahead of them, you’re putting the [New York] Mets ahead of them, you’re putting the [Atlanta] Braves ahead of them. They just got unlucky because they had to play that doubleheader. The Guardians played like crap, but the Guardians play better baseball all around. It was just a complete mismatch.”

Kelly, who made no 2024 postseason appearances amidst reported shoulder woes, carries a complicated legacy among Yankee fans: he is perhaps best-known for instigating a 2018 bench-clearing brawl between New York and rival Boston for throwing at then-Yankee Tyler Austin. Some, however, came to appreciate him when he mocked New York public enemy Carlos Correa during a 2020 showdown between the Dodgers and Houston Astros.

But Kelly’s new comments indicate there’s no love lost between himself and the Bronx Bombers.

The Yankees (94-68) earned the top seed in the American League for the first time since 2012, but their win total was the fewest in a full 162-game season for an AL regular season champion since the 1967 Boston Red Sox (92). New York did take down the Guardians in five games during the American League Championship Series, but offensive struggles with runners in scoring position foreshadowed their fate in the World Series, which saw the Dodgers dispose of them in a matching five.

Kelly ripped the Yankees’ apparent lack of fundamentals, notably calling out Gleyber Torres’ crucial error toward the end of Game 1: after Shohei Ohtani led the bottom of the eighth off with a double, Torres misplayed a relay throw from Juan Soto, allowing the runner to go to the third.

Granted an extra base, Ohtani scored on Mookie Betts’ sacrifice fly to tie the game, setting up Freddie Freeman’s heroic grand slam two frames later. That, of course, preceded the Yankees’ Game 5 nightmare, which saw Los Angeles erase a 5-0 deficit by taking advantage of New York errors en route to the clinching victory.

Kelly acknowledged that his Dodgers were big spenders just like the Yankees, but that LA’s talents “aren’t lazy and play hard.”

“That’s the difference and the biggest separator,” Kelly said. “We were saying every single game. ‘Just let them throw the ball into the infield, they can’t make a play.’ You saw Shohei get an extra base going to third off a sloppy Gleyber play. It’s well-known. We all knew.”

Kelly, 36, recently wrapped his 13th MLB season and his fifth with Los Angeles; he posted a 4.78 ERA over 35 appearances while dealing with several injuries. Kelly also told Bradford that, despite the issues, he has no plans on announcing his retirement and is set to be a free agent along with fellow Dodgers Walker Buehler, Jack Flaherty, Kike Hernandez, and Teoscar Hernandez.

It’s safe to say, though, that the Yankees probably won’t be calling.