The Dodgers are the Yankees’ greatest alibi.

They are the West Coast doppelgangers who also have spent billions and billions of dollars chasing championships, and have one — in the pandemic 60-game 2020 season — since 1988. So the last time the Dodgers won it all in a full season was when Kirk Gibson famously limped around the bases — thus, just two years after the Mets’ last title.

If the Yanks chose to use it, the Dodgers exemplify just how difficult it is to be the last team standing, which Los Angeles will not be again this year after the 100-win NL West champion was swept out of the Division Series by the 84-win Diamondbacks.

Now before you get out your dartboard and replace Brian Cashman’s picture with mine, I am not here to pardon what has been now several years of particularly bad Yankees decision-making. They have roundly failed recently — picking the wrong free agents too often; making horrible trades; not getting enough from the draft, international and development; sticking to a philosophy that locked them into an offense that was too right-handed and not athletic enough. And that is a partial list.

The Yankees are at a crossroads. Hal Steinbrenner and Cashman can right the organization’s course, or else 2023 might play like 1988 — the year the Dodgers won their last full-season title. Those Yankees finished 85-76 and fifth in the AL East, but just 3 ¹/₂ games out of first. They could have (and did) convince themselves they were just a tweak or two away from returning to the playoffs for the first time since 1981. But the underlying issues were not going to be solved by signing Andy Hawkins, Dave LaPoint and Steve Sax.

Their farm system was made more barren by bad moves, like dealing Jay Buhner to the Mariners for Ken Phelps during the ‘88 season (hat tip to Frank Costanza) and when they tried to trade a veteran for youngsters they received little for Jack Clark. The front office was fractured. The word on the street for free agents with good offers elsewhere was to avoid The Bronx chaos. That led to a four-year period of darkness from 1989-92 when the Yankees had the majors’ second-worst winning percentage.

The Dodgers do not project toward a similar crossroads. They have Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Will Smith. Walker Buehler and Gavin Lux, who didn’t play at all this season, should be back in full next year. They have shown to have one of the best development systems in baseball and do not have an albatross contract on the books — thus have plenty to spend on Shohei Ohtani or anyone else to upgrade.

The Dodgers are a model organization and yet are fielding criticisms with similarities to those leveled at the Yankees, such as:

1. They did not address the biggest area of concern coming out of last season. For the Yankees, that was their lineup. For the Dodgers, it was their rotation.

They were losing Tyler Anderson and Andrew Heaney, who both pitched well for the 2022 Dodgers. Bueheler, who underwent Tommy John surgery in August 2022, was iffy to return in 2023 (he didn’t). How many innings could they get out of Dustin May, who was limited to six starts in 2022 after returning from Tommy John surgery? Clayton Kershaw would be in his age-35 season amid yearly questions about physically enduring.

The only offseason addition was Noah Syndergaard, who had a 7.16 ERA in 12 starts before being traded to the Guardians. May broke down and needed Tommy John again; 2022 NL All-Star Tony Gonsolin also needed the procedure. Julio Urias, who was suspended in 2019 for violating MLB’s domestic abuse policies, was placed on administrative leave in early September as MLB investigated another alleged domestic abuse issue. Urias, the Dodgers’ Division Series Game 1 starter last season, was not available in the postseason.

Like the Yankees, the Dodgers could not see some of this coming. The Yanks, for example, lost Domingo German, who was put on administrative leave in 2019 and ultimately suspended for a domestic abuse issue, due to an incident this August at Yankee Stadium that led to him seeking treatment for alcohol abuse.

The Dodgers relied on Kershaw (compromised as the season went along by a shoulder ailment), young starters such as Bobby Miller and the trade-deadline acquisition of Lance Lynn. That trio lasted a combined 4 ²/₃ innings against Arizona and yielded 13 runs.

2. The star right fielder again went cold. Betts and Freeman are going to finish second and either third or fourth, respectively, for the NL MVP. If you were having a dispersal draft of position players, they would probably be two of the top-five picks for their all-around greatness. They have been central to three championships. They are just the kind of players you would want in a postseason series.

But they went a combined 1-for-21 against the D’backs. Betts was 0-for-10, and in the Dodgers’ past three postseason series, all of which they were eliminated, Betts is 6-for-44 (.136). Aaron Judge in the past three series/wild-card games in which the Yankees were eliminated is 5-for-41 (.122). It’s hard to win when the best player does not excel at this time of year.

3. The Dodgers also did not sign Bryce Harper. It has become a parlor game, every time Harper homers and shows just how built for October he is, to rekindle that after the 2018 season, Cashman mentioned a group of outfielders who would prove to be underwhelming that crowded the Yankees roster and, thus, took Harper out of consideration. Cashman also mentioned he could not envision Harper playing first (where he is playing now).

It was assumed that offseason that Harper’s preferred destinations were the Yankees or Dodgers, and Los Angeles offered the lefty slugger a reported four years at $180 million, but would not give him the length he desired. Harper ultimately signed with the Phillies for 13 years at $330 million.

It should be noted that the Nationals won the World Series the season after Harper left, and the narrative then was a team did ***** not ***** need Harper to win, plus the Phillies failed to make the playoffs his first three seasons. But last year he had the biggest hit in the NLCS to eliminate the Padres, who had ousted the Dodgers in the Division Series. And he has been brilliant again this postseason. In just his first three Division Series games this year, Harper had three homers and five RBIs while the Dodgers as a team in their three-game ouster had one homer and six RBIs.

4. The Dodgers also are annually clobbered for being overly analytical, similarly to the Yankees. That usually manifests in how manager Dave Roberts manipulates his postseason pitching — running away from starters to begin a scripted relief conveyer belt. But the starters were beat up so quickly this season that the criticism did not manifest. It is more again focused on Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman figuring out ways to win in a case like this season while lowering payroll and not committing to a difference-making veteran starting pitcher by using money and/or prospects who might have helped.

In years in which the Dodgers used prospects to obtain Yu Darvish (2017) and Max Scherzer (2021) — which coincided with seasons in which they also obtained Manny Machado and Trea Turner at the deadline — they did not win the World Series.

5. What are the legacies? The Yankees stretched their mark for winning records to 31 straight seasons this year. It is the second-longest in MLB history. As opposed to, say, their rival Red Sox, they never are irrelevant in a race. In half of the past 12 seasons, Boston has finished with a sub-.500 record in last place. But they also won four division titles and two World Series in that time.

The Yankees have the second-best record in that time, but just three division titles and no pennants. The team with the best record in this period is the Dodgers. Beginning in 2013, they have made the playoffs 11 straight seasons, won the NL West 10 times (they won 106 games the year they finished second), and they have produced the three best regular-season franchise records in a history stretching to 1884 and four of the best five.

But there is just the one World Series title in that shortened year. So what do we make of the Dodgers of this era?