Instead of watching Aaron Judge and the Yankees looking to avenge last year’s ALCS ouster or the Mets hoping to give owner Steve Cohen his money’s worth for his record-setting payroll, both teams got a head start on planning for 2024.

Hopefully next year’s blueprints don’t include selling — or being idle — at the trade deadline, only to see former players making an impact elsewhere in the playoffs, which is what this October looks like.

From Aaron Hicks (Orioles) and Josh Donaldson (Brewers), both given away by the Yankees after ugly ends in The Bronx, to Jordan Montgomery (Rangers) — traded to St. Louis at last year’s deadline in exchange for Harrison Bader, now another former Yankee — the Yankees are seeing their past mistakes still playing meaningful baseball.

And in Queens, the Mets knew many of their trade-deadline departures would still be going, but the original plan was not to sign Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer only to see them pitch elsewhere in the playoffs (though Scherzer’s status for the remainder of the postseason remains uncertain due to a strained teres major, the same injury that sidelined Verlander early this season with the Mets).