The series beginning tonight is the third time in the last six years that the Yankees will meet the Red Sox in the American League Championship Series. For those who fancy some continuity in the long struggle between the two franchises, a look at the box scores from the 1999 ALCS will be instructive. Of the 50 players on the active rosters for that series just 10 will be playing in this one, and only four of them for Boston.

That Red Sox team was fascinating. In a desperate rush to buy a championship, then-General Manager Dan Duquette was willing to take on almost any player, provided he had at one time been a star. In 1999 the Sox playoff rotation included Bret Saberhagen and Ramon Martinez, while the lineup featured the likes of Butch Huskey, Jose Offerman, and Mike Stanley. It was less a team than it was a randomly assembled collection of names anchored by Nomar Garciaparra and Pedro Martinez. Duquette’s frantic attempt to spend his way out of years of bad planning and neglect of the farm system would reach its height with the mildly notorious 2000 team, for which players such as Rico Brogna, Gary Gaetti, and Rolando Arrojo were hauled in to fill in the holes around the team’s two great stars.

The Yankees in those years were as judicious in their planning as the Red Sox were foolish. While they never hesitated to bring in someone like Chuck Knoblauch or Roger Clemens in a huge deal, those acquisitions were not due to a policy of haphazardly collecting talent, but because each player was the best fit for a specific role. Had Jeff Kent been available after the 1997 season, the Yankees wouldn’t have wanted him; they needed a leadoff man like Knoblauch, not a low average slugger. The careful and thoughtful planning of those years resulted in a team that was more than the sum of its parts.

Looking at the Red Sox and Yankees today, it’s amazing how quickly they’ve reversed positions. Like the 1999 Red Sox, the current Yankees seem like a collection of random talent, though to nowhere near the same extent; like the 1999 Yankees, this year’s Red Sox roster is comprised of players with specific and natural roles.

While the Yankees are a monochromatic team that will go as far as the top half of their lineup, the back end of their bullpen, and Joe Torre take them, the Red Sox are a three-dimensional club that might win this series either with slugging, small ball, great starting pitching, or defense. The teams are well matched in terms of overall talent, and certainly either can win this series. But the greater variety of strengths the Red Sox bring to bear makes them the favorite.

The different approaches with which these teams were built can be seen in their trading-deadline activities. Both were faced with essentially the same problem – they were unexpectedly weak in the back ends of their rotations. In response, the Yankees acquired 2003 Cy Young runner-up Esteban Loaiza for no discernible reason. Anyone who had seen him in 2004 could have told you that he’d become the same sub-mediocrity he was before last year, and he has proven as much during his short time in the Bronx.

The Red Sox, on the other hand, decided to make the best of what they had by improving their defense. They worked a complicated trade in which they acquired shortstop Orlando Cabrera and first baseman Doug Mientkewicz for Garciaparra. Nearly universally derided at the time, the deal turned the Red Sox from a .500 club to a .670 one.

In those moves you see the difference between a team willing to try anything in search of something that will work and a team built on solid baseball principles. This explains why the Sox have a deep bench with everything from reasonable pinch-hitters to defensive specialists for the infield and outfield, while the Yankees have reasonable pinch-hitters and nothing else. It explains why the Red Sox’ gambles, like using Bronson Arroyo as a no. 3 starter, have tended to work out better in reality than they have on paper, while the Yankees’, like counting on Javier Vazquez to fulfill his ace potential, have worked out worse. And it explains why the Red Sox were in many ways a better team than the Yankees this year, beating them 11-8 in the season series, scoring 52 more runs and allowing 39 fewer.

For a long time the Yankees were the team built on solid principles. The club weighed durability, intelligent play, and consistency as well as pure talent and skill; rather than acquiring players because they were there to be had, they patiently waited for players who fit. This approach was abandoned after the 2001 World Series in favor of the principle of instant gratification that failed the Red Sox for so many years.

These Yankees wield resources much greater than those 1990s Red Sox could draw upon, and spending may well prove enough to overcome savvy. I don’t think it will.