(The Tigers, for instance, made two special trips to Oakland that weren’t on the original schedule.) Some of the 2022 totals are a product of the frenetic travel a bunch of teams had to do just to play 162 games after the lockout.Some of it has to do with one-of-a-kind trips, like the Cardinals’ foray to London this June.Some of it is fluky, a product of year-to-year variations, especially in the old schedule, which rotated on a three-year interleague cycle.So what’s up with that? Impossible to generalize, say people familiar with the schedule-making process, because there are multiple reasons for it: Why will the Cardinals fly 10,000 more miles than the Brewers? But when this schedule begins to roll out, day by day, week by week, series by series, road trip by road trip, it is not going to look like anything you once thought of as “normal.” So now let’s rip through those details. So to get them in front of as many fans as possible only helps players tell their story.” We have great players, and we have players who are making national storylines. “The whole genesis of this idea,” says MLB’s chief operations and strategy officer, Chris Marinak, “was, we play 162 games. That’s a critical part of this scheduling logic. It was 18 road parks (19 total) under the old format. And we’ll deliver them to your doorstep, just like Uber Eats. Under this format, every team will play games in 22 road parks, or 23 total, every season. That’s the driving force behind shifting to a schedule format like this one. Whoever that star is, he is going to face that team you care about. … Mike Trout … Aaron Judge … Mookie Betts … Max Scherzer. You can fill in the name of any monster star-power dude you want there. But you know what’s way more powerful? You don’t have to open that MLB app to find him. It can try to convince you: Hey, Ohtani is a superhero. Look, here’s the truth: Baseball is a regional sport. What were they thinking?Īnd finally, there are these two words: Every year. Baseball clearly isn’t in the nostalgia business anymore. And if you miss those days when there was a sense of mystery and distinction between the two leagues … well, sorry. When interleague play began a quarter-century ago, it was a tease and an oddity. There used to be 19 or 20 interleague games a year. So if Julio Rodríguez doesn’t play in your town this season, he’ll stop by next season. You know those remaining 14 teams in the other league? Your team will now be matched up against every darned one of them, three games apiece, every year, for the first time in the modern era. Where do those other 42 interleague games come from? They come from what we’re declaring is the most dramatic scheduling change in the history of this sport. Oh, not the part where every team faces its designated interleague “rival” four times - two games at home, two on the road. INTERLEAGUE GAMES (46): This is where it gets wild. Those 64 total games are only two fewer than the old total, of 66. OTHER 10 LEAGUE OPPONENTS (64): Each club will now play every other team in its league in one series at home and one on the road, for a total of either six or seven games per opponent. That number has been chopped to 13 games against each division opponent, spread out over four series (two at home, two on the road). That computes to 19 games - and six series - versus every division opponent. OWN DIVISION (52): In the olden days, by which we mean last year, every team played 76 games against its own division. Now here’s a quick rundown of how the world has changed: Old-fashioned unbalanced schedule? See ya!Įvery team playing all 29 other teams every year? Hello! But buried inside those new luxury tax thresholds was this major scheduling earthquake: You might have missed it last March, when MLB teased this epic schedule remake as it was ticking off all the stuff settled in the labor deal. What’s going on with this schedule? We have answers … to every one of your questions … and lots more you didn’t know you needed to ask. So what the heck is happening here? This is that story where we answer that question - and many more. MLB blew up the schedule as we used to know it - and replaced it with something very different, and very disorienting, but also very entertaining. But they’re not the only excellent, perceptive questions you should be asking - because you know what happened while you were trying to figure out what snacks to serve at your Super Bowl party? These are all excellent, perceptive questions you should be asking. And is there some sort of logical reason the Phillies will play 15 games against the Rangers, Yankees, White Sox, Mariners and Astros in March and April … but zero games against the Mets, Braves and Nationals?
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