I can understand how some might answer, 1961, 1978, or 1998 as being the greatest Yankee year, but other than beating a very good Mariners team, I'm not sure why 2001 and the loss to the D-backs makes the greatest list.
'61 was the Maris-Mantle HR race, a juggernaut and a bounce back WS win over the Reds.
'78 we know about 14 games out, Bucky, yada, x3, and that you hope for a '78 redux in '21 (we know)
'98-they almost literally never lost and maybe the best team I've seen along with the mid 70s Reds or late 60s O's that easily come to my mind.
'01 I get the 9/11 connection, (I worked downtown) and the come from behind wins in the WS, (poor B.H. Kim) but I'm not getting the greatest aspect.
Maybe favorite or most sentimental, but greatest?
1961 was before my time, 1978 I remember but I was only 11. 1998 is the obvious answer but the caliber of playoff opposition NY faced in 2001 in all three series was probably even better than the Sox in 2018, as I mentioned before. It was truly remarkable that they got two outs away from a fourth straight title.
ALDS: NY faced Oakland, who had just finished a 63-18 second half, the best second half ever. OAK won the first two games in NY, then game 3 in OAK was the famous Mussina game with Jeter's shuffle pass to get Jeremy Giambi at the plate. NY won game 4 in OAK and game 5 at home and survived.
ALCS: NY faced Seattle, who were 116-46 in the regular season, again the best record any of us has ever seen. NY won the first 2 and then SEA crushed in game 3, 14-3. Game 4 was scoreless through 7, then SEA scored in the top of the 8th (Bret Boone HR off Ramiro Mendoza). NY answered with 1 in the 8th (Bernie HR off Arthur Rhodes) and 2 in the 9th (Soriano HR off Sasaki). That gave NY a 3-1 series lead and took the steam out of SEA, NY finished the series with a 12-3 win the next day.
WS: NY faced Arizona, who wasn't a great team but had the best two man pitching combo in postseason history in Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling. Those two started 5 of the 7 games plus Johnson came into game 7 in relief on no days rest. Both were close to unhittable, ARI won games 1 and 2 behind them (NY only scoring 1 run in the two games combined), then NY won game 3 2-1. Game 4 was Schilling on 3 days rest, 1-1 through 7. ARI went up 3-1 in the 8th, and NY was down to their last out in the 9th before Tino went deep off Kim to tie it and then Jeter homered in the 10th (Mr. November!) to win it, series tied at 2. Game 5 saw ARI up 2-0 in the 9th and NY down to their last out before Kim blew another one, this time a two run HR to Brosius and eventually a game-winning single in the 12th by Soriano.
So NY was up 3 games to 2 and heading back to Arizona, who had home-field advantage in this series where all seven games were won at home despite NY having a better regular season record. They got crushed in game 6 and game 7 was 1-1 through 7. Soriano hit a deeply impressive HR off Schilling in the 8th to put NY up 2-1 and with Rivera coming in for six outs, it looked like NY was going to win their fourth straight title, before ARI came back and they didn't. For the series, ARI outscored NY 37-14 and still came two outs away from losing.
So yeah, I think there is an argument for greatest, although really I was answering 'favorite' in Terry's actual post more than 'greatest' in his title.