The Yankees have not won a championship since 2009 and that is generally brandished as the touchstone to lambaste Hal Steinbrenner, Brian Cashman and how they operate the franchise.

But titles are hard to win. The Dodgers and Astros have been the model organizations of recent vintage. Yet, the Dodgers remain with one World Series title since 1988 — in a pandemic year with a 60-game regular season. The Astros have won one World Series in their history — in 2017, a year for which they were punished for illegal sign stealing.

Short series raise the potential for random outcomes and fickle results. In the 2000s, only twice have the teams with the best records in each league played in the 22 World Series — and one was the 2020 short season with the Dodgers and Rays.

Just look at this season. The Dodgers are on pace for 111 wins, yet lost both of their series to the Pirates, including getting swept three games at home. They are a combined 4-8 against Pittsburgh and Washington — the two worst teams in the National League.

But they are on their way to those 111 wins and, more importantly, their ninth NL West title in the last 10 years. And when they didn’t win it last year, it took the Giants reaching 107 victories to hold off the 106 of the Dodgers.

The Astros are on their way to a fifth AL West title in the last six seasons. The Braves are fighting to overtake the Mets to win a fifth straight NL East title.

Of course, winning a championship is the goal and the ultimate. But the greater baseball sin for the Yankees when it comes to judging team/roster building is that they have captured just one of the past nine AL East titles. Because the 162 games are truth serum. You might lose a series to the Pirates or Nationals over the six months, but the best of quality comes out over that quantity. Part of that truth is whether you spent — in the Yankees’ case — a large payroll well and have you justified swelling the size of your front office to NASA space-launch proportions?

The Mets are part of this discussion as well. They have won just two World Series, none since 1986. More staggering, at least to me, is that they have won only six division titles, never in consecutive years and just once in the same decade (1986, 1988).

Even Aaron Boone said of the 162 games, “I think it is the true measure” of who the best teams are.

But Boone had just one division title in his first four years as Yankee manager, though he currently sits with the sixth-best winning percentage (.601) for anyone who has managed at least 600 games.

This, to some degree, reflects the strength of the AL East in which, for example, four members won 90-plus games last year and three are likely to make the playoffs this season.

Rays manager Kevin Cash said he sees the team that wins the World Series as the best, but made special dispensation to the achievement of winning the AL East because of how deep it is almost annually. Every member has won the division in the last nine years. The Red Sox have won it the most at four times, but they are just about to finish last for a fourth time in that period — and fifth time in 11 seasons.

The Mets and the Yankees did important work to secure division titles over the weekend against the Florida teams after ominous Friday night losses. The Mets beat the Marlins by a combined 20-6 on Saturday and Sunday, the Yankees defeated the Rays by a combined 20-7. The Mets had fallen out of first place for the first time since April 12 on Friday night before regaining a 1 ¹/₂- game lead through the weekend. The Yankees’ lead fell to 3 ¹/₂ on Friday, the smallest since May 9 — and it was just two in the loss column — before they opened to 5 ¹/₂ going into their Monday off-day.

By blowing so much of what had been a 15 ¹/₂-game lead, the Yankees already cost themselves a chance to overtake the Astros for the AL’s top seed and also lost a more comfortable way to reintroduce their host of injured players back to the regular roster. Still, winning the division would be mammoth, and not just because it pretty much assures the No. 2 seed and avoiding a fickle best-of-three first-round matchup.

The regular season ends Oct. 5 and the Division Series begins Oct. 11 and those off-days in between might create enough time for Andrew Benintendi and (outside chance) Matt Carpenter returning from injury for the playoffs. And, of course, it would allow the Yankees to set up their Division Series pitching as they desire.

For the Mets, championship aspirations are built around deploying Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer in the best fashion. But if the Mets finish behind the Braves, deGrom and Scherzer would (if healthy) start Games 1 and 2 of the wild-card round on Oct. 7-8, leaving them available just once each as starters in a best-of-five Division Series and not in use before Game 2 at the earliest.

So over the final three weeks of the regular season, the New York clubs clearly have a first priority.