Two teams from the American League East are in the league’s championship series, and one of them is not the Yankees. This is the third time in six years and fourth time in 10 years that two A.L. East teams have played for the league pennant, and in every one of those previous instances the teams were the Red Sox and the Yankees.

What has happened to the Yankees? It’s not just that they have been replaced by the Tampa Bay Rays in this post-season; that development could turn out to be a transitory glitch. More significantly, the Yankees have been eclipsed by the Red Sox as the premier team and organization in the division.

That conclusion isn’t based strictly on the outcome of this year’s division race, though the season is symptomatic of developments in the lives of the Yankees and the Red Sox. In a more general way, the Red Sox have demonstrated that they are smarter and more adept than the Yankees in judging talent, in trading, in scouting, in player development and in strategic planning.

The teams have similarities that are useful in judging the quality of their operations.

The Red Sox went to Japan and signed Daisuke Matsuzaka. The Yankees went to Japan and signed Kei Igawa.

The Red Sox have a young center fielder, Jacoby Ellsbury, who is instrumental in igniting their offense. The Yankees have a young center fielder, Melky Cabrera, whom they sent to the minor leagues in August.

The Red Sox have a young second baseman, Dustin Pedroia, whose .326 batting average fell two hits short of winning the A.L. batting title and who led the league in runs scored, multi-hit games and doubles, tied for the lead in hits and was fourth in total bases. The Yankees have a young second baseman, Robinson Cano, who needed eight hits in the last three games to get his on-base percentage over .300.

The Red Sox needed a starting pitcher and in mid-August traded for veteran Paul Byrd, who compiled a 4-2 record in eight starts. The Yankees needed a starting pitcher and in June yanked Joba Chamberlain out of the bullpen and put him in the starting rotation, where he suffered a shoulder ailment that cost him a month.

The Red Sox needed to trade their best hitter, Manny Ramirez, and in a three-team deal that included Pittsburgh got Jason Bay, who batted .293 with a series of key hits that fueled critical Boston victories.

The Yankees needed a hitter and, five days before the Bay trade,  turned to the same team, the Pirates, and got Xavier Nady, whose batting average for the Yankees was 25 points less than Bay’s was for Boston and whose on-base percentage was 50 points and slugging percentage 53 points less.

No individual hitter can replace Ramirez and his offensive production, but Bay was instrumental in helping the Red Sox hold off the Yankees.

“He fits like an old shoe here,” Larry Lucchino said “He’s just been a terrific teammate as well as a productive player who helped us get to this point.”

Is Theo Epstein, the Red Sox general manager, smarter than Brian Cashman, the Yankees general manager? I have never seen their college transcripts or results of I.Q. tests, but it was Cashman, not Epstein, who decided the Yankees could get to the post-season with Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy in their starting rotation, and it was Cashman, not Epstein, who decided the Yankees didn’t need Johan Santana.

This is the Red Sox seventh year under the ownership of John Henry, and they have played in the post-season five of those years. Twice in the last four years they won the World Series. The last time the Yankees won the World Series was a year before the Henry group bought the Red Sox.

“It starts at the top with ownership,” Lucchino said Tuesday about 12 hours after the Red Sox eliminated the Angels, the team with the A.L.’s best record, from the post-season. Lucchino was making no claims about the Red Sox place in baseball’s pecking order. He was replying to my comments and my questions.

“There’s an old Yiddish proverb that the fish stinks from the head,” the team’s chief executive officer said. “The opposite is also true. The strength of an organization comes from its head. Our ownership has all the right baseball values, starting with winning. You cannot fake it. Fans, players, the world can tell if you’re not committed to winning at the top and throughout the organization.”

This is not to suggest that the Yankees are not committed to winning at all levels. They are. They just haven’t done a very good job of demonstrating it with their decisions in recent years.

Consider the annual June draft, for example. It has been a gold mine for the Red Sox, a wasteland for the Yankees.

Derek Jeter (1992) was the last high-round draft choice who is an everyday member of the Yankees’ lineup. The Red Sox have Pedroia (2004), Ellsbury (05) and Jed Lowrie (05). On the pitching side of the draft ledger, the Yankees have Chamberlain (06) and the yet-to-prove-themselves Hughes (04) and Kennedy (06). The Red Sox have Jon Lester (02), Jonathan Papelbon (03), Justin Masterson (06) and Manny Delcarmen (00).

“When we got here, we made a significant physical and financial commitment to scouting and player development,” Lucchino said. “We’ve had two great scouting directors – David Chadd, whom John Henry brought with him from Florida, and then Jason McLeod, who was hired by Theo when Chadd went to Detroit.”

Besides the general draft results in recent years, probably the most glaring example of the difference between the Red Sox and the Yankees has been their Japanese experiences. The Red Sox committed $103 million two years ago to get Matsuzaka and while they were at it they signed reliever Hideki Okajima, too.

The Yankees signed Igawa, who in two years and 13 starts, only one this year, has been a bigger bust than Hideki Irabu was for them a decade earlier.

“Theo Epstein and Craig Shipley are very aggressive in international activities,” Lucchino said. In addition, Lucchino said, Henry and his partner, Tom Werner, issued orders when the Red Sox pursued Matsuzaka.

“John and Tom said we will not be outbid for him, and we were not,” Lucchino said.

The Yankees were shocked at Boston’s $51 million bid to Matsuzaka’s Japanese team under the posting system, but the Red Sox were determined not to let this one get away. Four years earlier the Yankees snatched Jose Contreras when the Red Sox thought the Cuban pitcher was in their grasp. The Red Sox were infuriated and didn’t forget.

Matsuzaka has been a valuable addition to the Red Sox rotation. He struggled at times in his first season, ending with a 15-12 record and 4.40 earned run average in 32 starts, but once he had that year of adjustment behind him, he blossomed this year, compiling an 18-3 record and 2.90 e.r.a. in 29 starts.

Before he formed a group to buy the Red Sox, Henry owned the Florida Marlins and before that he was a limited partner in George Steinbrenner’s Yankees ownership. He is careful not to say anything negative about the Yankees.

“Our philosophies are remarkably similar,” Henry said in an e-mail reply to questions about the two teams. ” Our GMs are remarkably like-minded.  Both Theo and Brian are very smart and committed to developing young players.”

The Yankees, Henry added, “have an excellent organization from top to bottom. They don’t have any weaknesses. They had some tough injuries this year. Their young pitchers are going to be very, very successful.”

The Yankees wish they knew that to be so. Until and unless they are, though, the Red Sox will continue to prevail. And the longer they prevail, the more likely it will be that Lucchino will have reason to change his phone number.

“When I came to Boston,” he related, “I had to get a new cell phone.” He said he was offered a number that included a lot of 2’s. “I said it’s perfect. It will remind me of the Yankees-Red Sox dynamic. It will remind me that the Red Sox had finished second to the Yankees year after year.”

Perhaps somewhat superstitious and reluctant to rile the enemy, whom he once called the Evil Empire, Lucchino doesn’t plan to change his number to get one that includes a lot of 1’s.