Five Cuts: No doubt, this year the best team won the World Series

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"The Core Four" of Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada, Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera earned a fifth ring. Getty Images

1. Sometimes Goliath wins, or, if you prefer the most appropriate analogy after World Series Game 6, Godzilla kicks butt.

Really, who could argue that the Yankees were the best baseball team for the past five months (they went 76-30, a .717 winning percentage, and never faced a crisis game), and that there was no way the Phillies were going to beat them with only one pitcher, Cliff Lee, who could hold them down. I liked what Hank Steinbrenner said in the winning clubhouse about how the front office viewed the team back in spring training: "We knew we had the best team in baseball."

After years of seeing upstarts, hot teams and cursebreakers win the World Series and playoff baseball reduced to "a crapshoot," we got an old fashioned, the-best-team-won World Series. In most every winning clubhouse players blather about how "no one expected us to be here" and "we had to overcome a lot of adversity to be here," but it was kind of refreshing to see the favored horse bring a win home by a comfortable margin.

By no means was it all easy. It's a credit to general manager Brian Cashman, whose moves for Damaso Marte, Nick Swisher and Mark Teixeira were inspired, and manager Joe Girardi, who pulled a nice Tom Coughlin by smoothing his rough edges without compromising who he is. Winning with the best team takes overcoming the pressure that you're supposed to win, and that's not as easy as it sounds. Cashman and Girardi struck the right cord in allowing this team the room to have its fun and still be prepared.

The Yankees are the first team to lead the league in runs and home runs and win the World Series since the great 1984 Tigers. They won a championship with three starting pitchers in the postseason, the first time that has been done since the 1991 Twins. They won every game in the World Series not started by Lee. They won the World Series with four pitchers (three starters and Mariano Rivera) getting 75 percent of the outs.

Don't look for Cinderella here, or even a Kirk Gibson moment for perpetuity. The lasting moment of the Series might be Johnny Damon swiping two bases on one pitch, though a lack of preparation by the Phillies helped make it so.

The World Series gave us six games for the first time in six years -- the longest such drought in Series history -- but none of the games was decided by one run. It was the first time since 1987 that we didn't get any one-run games in a Series of at least six games. Was it a great World Series? Not really. But was it won by a great team? Absolutely.

2. It's tough to argue against a guy with the area code of Nashville for a batting average (.615) winning the MVP Award. Hideki Matsui truly was a monster at the plate. But Matsui didn't start half the games and never played an inning in the field. If you wanted all-around contributions, you could look to Derek Jeter. The Yankees shortstop batted .407 and, at 35, became the oldest shortstop to play for a world championship team since Pee Wee Reese of the 1955 Dodgers.

Jeter is a career .321 hitter in the World Series, including .381 in clinching wins. Jeter has scored seven runs in his five clinching wins, including at least one in each. Only Joe DiMaggio (7) has more clinching wins with a run scored than Jeter, who is tied with Bill Dickey.