Yankees’ unraveling began one year ago — what happens next?

What a difference a year makes.

For the Yankees, they can look back on last Oct. 18, a year ago Wednesday, as the day they clinched their win over Cleveland in the ALDS with a victory at the Stadium, thanks in part to Harrison Bader’s sudden power surge.

Since then, the Yankees promptly got swept by the Astros in the ALCS. They signed Aaron Judge to the biggest deal in franchise history, only to see him waylaid by an injury in June.

They also inked Carlos Rodon to a six-year, $162 million deal that has become infamous with the lefty’s disastrous 2023, and signed Tommy Kahnle, a disappointment in his first season back with the team.

That was all part of the Yankees’ worst season in decades: They missed the playoffs for the first time since 2016 and finished with their fewest wins (82) in a full season since 1992, wasting a year of Judge’s and Gerrit Cole’s primes.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, the guy they traded to get Bader at the 2022 deadline, Jordan Montgomery, has emerged as a playoff ace for the Rangers.

Bader followed up his playoff success by struggling again to stay healthy and to find consistency at the plate. Instead of moving Bader at the trade deadline, the Yankees held on to the center fielder, only to put him on waivers later in August to make room for Jasson Dominguez.

Dominguez got off to a promising start with four homers in his first eight games before suffering a torn UCL that will keep him out at least a significant portion of next season.

So where do the Yankees go from here?

Instead of reckoning with the Astros in the playoffs again, the Yankees are in the midst of reevaluating how they do business, with Hal Steinbrenner saying last week, “We’re going to make some changes. Some may be more subtle than others. But I think we’ve uncovered, certainly, things we can do better.”

By all accounts, general manager Brian Cashman will be back, and manager Aaron Boone still has another year on his contract, though no one has said publicly that either will return in 2024.

Presuming there’s no massive overhaul in the front office or at manager, the Yankees have to decide how to move forward.

They still don’t have a regular center fielder — and haven’t for the better part of the past two seasons since Brett Gardner’s final year, when he was 38.

And left field has been no better. The Yankees virtually ignored the position outside of Andrew Benintendi’s short stint in 2022.

Also on the agenda figures to be a reassessment of why they believed Montgomery was expendable when they sent him to St. Louis.

Since then, the lefty has pitched better than any Yankee starter outside of Cole.

On the positive side, history indicates the Yankees should be improved next year. They’ve missed the playoffs in consecutive seasons just once (2013-14) since their long playoff drought ended in 1995, and if they can keep Judge healthy and on the field, he can mask plenty of other issues.

But once their offseason audit is over, they’ll still have to address the outfield, the rotation, the bullpen and third base — did we miss anything? — if they want to avoid another October of watching former Yankees excel in the playoffs while they sit at home.

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They might not be Giants

The Giants nearly came away with an improbable win Sunday night in Buffalo, but in falling just short, their record dropped to 1-5.

They have lost four straight while mired in an unfathomable touchdown drought, and there aren’t too many games the Giants should expect to be favored to win the rest of the way.

The unexpected success a season ago, when Brian Daboll led them to a surprising playoff berth — and a wild-card-round playoff win over Minnesota — is becoming a distant memory.

Now the Giants have to hope they don’t become a part of history as having one of the worst ever seasons following a playoff appearance.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, four teams have followed up playoff seasons by going 2-14. That .125 winning percentage is the lowest for an NFL team coming off a postseason berth.

The last team to suffer that fate was the 2013 Houston Texans in their encore to winning the AFC South with a 12-4 record. After a 2-0 start, the Texans lost 14 in a row, and head coach Gary Kubiak was fired after the 11th straight defeat.

In 2010, the Indianapolis Colts won their division, going 10-6. But neck injuries caused Peyton Manning to miss the entire 2011 season and the Colts plummeted to last place at 2-14 — which enabled them to select Andrew Luck with the top pick in the 2012 NFL Draft.

The 1993 Houston Oilers were 12-4 and won the division, but Warren Moon was traded to the Vikings and defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan left to become head coach of the Cardinals following the season. The next year, Houston fell to 2-14.

And in 1983, after reaching the postseason at 5-4 in a strike-shortened 1982 campaign, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers lost quarterback Doug Williams to the USFL after a contract dispute and sank to the bottom of the NFC.

The Giants — who have been done in by a tougher schedule, a ragtag offensive line and injuries to Saquon Barkley and Daniel Jones — are playing a 17-game schedule.

They would set a new post-playoffs standard by going 2-15 (.118 winning percentage) or avoid this company by scrounging out at least three wins.

Miami twice

Perhaps the next person with Yankees ties who has a chance to join the Marlins front office should reconsider.

First, Derek Jeter left his position as CEO back in February 2022 after more than four years with the organization.

Then on Monday, Kim Ng, who helped guide the Marlins to the postseason in her third season as general manager, decided to decline her mutual option for 2024 and is now a free agent.

Ng, who spent five years as an assistant GM with the Yankees from 1998-2002, became the first female GM in MLB history in 2020.

When Jeter left, he released a statement that read, in part, “The vision for the future of the franchise is different than the one I signed up to lead. Now is the right time for me to step aside as a new season begins.”

Ng seemed to come to a similar realization, telling The Athletic on Monday that team owner “Bruce [Sherman] and I discussed his plan to reshape the Baseball Operations department. In our discussions, it became apparent that we were not completely aligned on what that should look like and I felt it best to step away.”

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