The New York Yankees were just badly disrespected heading into the MLB playoffs.

For all of the ups and downs they have experienced this season, the New York Yankees have actually been one of the hottest teams in baseball over the last month.

The Yankees have gone 19-8 over their last 27 games, beating some pretty good clubs throughout that stretch. The best part? Their last two series of the regular season are against the Chicago White Sox and Baltimore Orioles, so they could end up reeling off eight straight wins before the playoffs begin (they are already on a two-game winning streak).

New York's success has been thanks much in part to its starting pitching, with Max Fried and Carlos Rodon forming one of the most lethal one-two punches in the sport and Luis Gil, Cam Schlittler and Will Warren admirably rounding out the rotation.

However, ESPN's Kiley McDaniel apparently does not think much of the Yankees' pitching staff, ranking their starting rotation 11th among the 14 teams currently in the postseason.

"Fried and Rodon have some mixed outcomes in their postseason history, though their underlying performance is pretty consistent with the regular season," McDaniel wrote. "Schlittler has only made a dozen big league starts and Gil has made nine starts this season with two career playoff appearances and a 6.75 career playoff ERA. All that to say that there's a distinct downside risk here and the bullpen is a strength, so the relievers could get a lot of work."

Yes, Schlittler is very inexperienced, and Gil has only made a couple of playoff starts, but the latter's sample size is far too small to judge his ERA, and essentially brushing off the Fried-Rodon tandem at the top of the rotation is absurd.

Not only that, but McDaniel calls the Yanks' bullpen a "strength" even though it has been pretty rough the last three months. So how much are we actually paying attention to the Yankees here?

Does New York lack postseason mettle at the back of its rotation? Yes, but there is no way that the Yanks' starting pitchers should be ranked that low. Not when all you really need in a playoff series is two great starters, which the Yankees have.

And if Gil can at least be respectable in the playoffs as the No. 3 starter? Then New York is going to be incredibly dangerous.