MLB schedule is out, and there's a twist for '23

[IU Hawks fan]

I fully expect the AL and NL will be abolished in 5 years with a massive realignment.

I fully expect that you're wrong.

AL & NL still work fine, with 70% of the schedule dictated by that and as the playoff designators.

 

[Unholy Diver]

The natural rivals thing has always been a joke except for the inner-city rivalries. Pirates and Tigers are not rivals.

The natural rival for Pittsburgh is Cleveland. Or maybe even Baltimore. Though that is basically based on the NFL teams.

I think you are forgetting the fact that it will be the 114th anniversary of the Pirates beating the Tigers in the 1909 World Series.

Rumor is they are going to dig up Fred Clarke and Ty Cobb and put their skulls in a glass display case on the riverwalk next to Manny Sanguillen's BBQ pit

 

[Voight]

If you wanna market your players and get fans more involved, having more interleague games will help.

 

[SwordsgoneWild]

Texas and Houston are in the same league.

Right. I still think we're in the damn NL sometimes.

 

[Scandale du Jour]

If you wanna market your players and get fans more involved, having more interleague games will help.

That's why I think they are going the NFL/NHL way.

I fully expect them to play 2 series against each division outside of their own (one home, one away) as soon as there are 32 teams.

 

[LightningStorm]

I agree Oakland and Tampa have to be resolved.

I suspect Howard Terminal will get approved eventually but Tampa looks bleak.

Makes sense when you put it this way. If the MLB did do a radical overhaul of having East and West conferences and basing divisions on geography, it makes sense they'd want the situations in Oakland and Tampa to be resolved first.

 

[PG Canuck]

This was announced in the new CBA, so I saw this coming.

I can see this happening since logically, the different rules were the only reason to keep the AL & NL. Now that a universal DH exists, that reason is gone. AFC & NFC will still exist in the NFL since it's only a game a week and how their TV contracts are set up.

5 years would also give time for the A's to sort out their situation. If they leave Oakland, the Pacific division would be easy, with the 5 teams being the Mariners, Giants, Dodgers, Angels and Padres.

That sounds like hell so I respectfully decline.

 

[Vamos Rafa]

Does anyone still know people that loathe interleague play? Of course, those purists were the same people that always looked at the month of June when they would first see next year’s schedule to see which teams from the other league are playing their team.

 

[Ben Grimm]

Interleague play in cities with 2 teams (such as As vs Giants) is great. Otherwise it's incredibly stupid.

 

[GKJ]

Does anyone still know people that loathe interleague play? Of course, those purists were the same people that always looked at the month of June when they would first see next year’s schedule to see which teams from the other league are playing their team.

We’re long past that. Almost anyone who still hates interleague at this point is not their target audience.

 

[Vamos Rafa]

We’re long past that. Almost anyone who still hates interleague at this point is not their target audience.

Like the poster above you

 

[GKJ]

Like the poster above you

If you’re Major League Baseball, trying to attract an audience of people under 25 (which is what everybody should be doing), they don’t give a shit about the history and the notion of non-interleague play. Independent of whether it is or isn’t. You need to sell your star players and attractions, which means they need to be accessible. You’re trying to give people as many reasons as possible to go to the ballpark. Cutting off half the league because of historical and traditional purposes is counterproductive to that.

Ohtani has been a unicorn for marketable players, but ‘sorry St. Louis and Philadelphia you don’t get to see him play your team because he plays in the AL.’ In 2022, that’s really stupid.

 

[southsideIrish]

If you’re Major League Baseball, trying to attract an audience of people under 25 (which is what everybody should be doing), they don’t give a shit about the history and the notion of non-interleague play. Independent of whether it is or isn’t. You need to sell your star players and attractions, which means they need to be accessible. You’re trying to give people as many reasons as possible to go to the ballpark. Cutting off half the league because of historical and traditional purposes is counterproductive to that.

Ohtani has been a unicorn for marketable players, but ‘sorry St. Louis and Philadelphia you don’t get to see him play your team because he plays in the AL.’ In 2022, that’s really stupid.

In this example it also gives home teams a reason to market up the ticket pricing for the Angels because of Ohtani & Trout. The Angels are usually a high profile opponent now despite the fact they're a complete mess and usually double digit games out by June every year.

 

[Terry Yake]

why the hell would anyone hate interleague play?

 

[Unholy Diver]

why the hell would anyone hate interleague play?

For every series you get with Trout and Ohtani, you are also giving up games with division rivals to have the Pirates, Reds, A's, Tigers, and Royals of the world too. Those guys don't sell tickets, or drum up much excitement

 

[Cas]

At this point, the notion of keeping any semblance of their being two different leagues is pointless - they have the same rules, the same management, the same structure, and so on. They originated at different times, but they've been functionally merged for more than two decades.

The biggest issue is really addressing pace of play and the homogeneity of the sport. This will require rule changes or at least more rigorous enforcement of existing rules (please, automatic balls and strikes for pitchers who take too long to deliver or batters who step out of the box; force the players to stay in the damn box and throw the damn ball).

 

[Terry Yake]

For every series you get with Trout and Ohtani, you are also giving up games with division rivals to have the Pirates, Reds, A's, Tigers, and Royals of the world too. Those guys don't sell tickets, or drum up much excitement

from an owner's perspective sure, i can see why they'd dislike it

but from a fan's perspective, i think you'd be hard pressed to find many fans who would prefer to see the same division rivals over and over again instead of teams in the other league.

 

[GKJ]

from an owner's perspective sure, i can see why they'd dislike it

but from a fan's perspective, i think you'd be hard pressed to find many fans who would prefer to see the same division rivals over and over again instead of teams in the other league.

I don't think owners would dislike it if they can sell markups for big market teams that will come more often. Or even if they don't markup.

 

[Unholy Diver]

from an owner's perspective sure, i can see why they'd dislike it

but from a fan's perspective, i think you'd be hard pressed to find many fans who would prefer to see the same division rivals over and over again instead of teams in the other league.

Maybe, as a Pirates fan I've been boycotting attending live games for about 4 yrs now, plus we have no rivals since the team always sucks. But if you were a fan of a good team with real rivals , say a Dodgers or Yankees, or Mets fan, do you want less games against the Giants, Red Sox, or Braves so you can see the Royals, Pirates, or Tigers? There are no fans out there feeling sad that those teams didn't come to town.

And admittedly I consider myself more of the Old Man/Get off my lawn, purist type, so I don't like many of the changes that have taken place in recent years, but it is what it is, I'll still watch on TV, and someday maybe go back to a game in person, but I'm still too bitter to give any of my money to the Nutting regime right now.

 

[Vamos Rafa]

Maybe, as a Pirates fan I've been boycotting attending live games for about 4 yrs now, plus we have no rivals since the team always sucks. But if you were a fan of a good team with real rivals , say a Dodgers or Yankees, or Mets fan, do you want less games against the Giants, Red Sox, or Braves so you can see the Royals, Pirates, or Tigers? There are no fans out there feeling sad that those teams didn't come to town.

And admittedly I consider myself more of the Old Man/Get off my lawn, purist type, so I don't like many of the changes that have taken place in recent years, but it is what it is, I'll still watch on TV, and someday maybe go back to a game in person, but I'm still too bitter to give any of my money to the Nutting regime right now.

The number of divison games is still considered a shit ton. It didn’t go down dramatically. Went from almost half of the season (76 games or 18-19 vs each division rival) to 52 games (or 12-13 games). Yes, I want to see less games vs the Giants as a Dodger fan. Makes each game against them even more crucial. MLB currently has a higher percentage of games that are inside the division (47%) than the NFL (35% or 6 out of 17). That’s just f***ing bad and it’s about time they’re changing it. This is good for baseball.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

I...actually really, really like this. A rare win for Major League Baseball. There have been far too many divisional games for far too long...though surely some of my gripes there are holdovers of me still being sore about realignment 30 years ago and the Pirates being utterly useless throughout 95% of my life resulting in no rivalries. There's still a ton of them, it just won't be nearly as excessive. Just like the NHL's drop from 8 to 6 made a huge positive difference in my opinion.

Interleague is awesome and I'll fight anyone who says otherwise...though my stance on that is largely based on being a transplant and this basically doubling the chances of me going to a game. Plus interleague from the start was and remains the only reason I know *anything* about the AL. I loved it as a kid because it broke up the excessively long schedule with new teams and players I'd otherwise never get to see/learn about. That doesn't land as hard in the streaming era where the entire league is available so easily, but still. Playing the Cubs 19 times a year is f***ing obnoxious. I've never been a baseball sth, but I was with the Penguins and man did I ever f***ing hate seeing the same jerseys over and over and over again before realignment. Even the Flyers. Variety is greatly appreciated when watching every single game.

The whole natural rivals thing could have worked, but the overlap there wound up with too many non-rivals being forced together. The only reason the Bucs & Tigers are 'natural rivals' is because of a pair of World Series match-ups that predate the Titanic. When Pittsburgh & Cleveland play in each other's stadiums there's a massive attendance boost...but Cincinnati wanted the in-state rivalry and got it, leaving for a really unsatisfying game of musical chairs. Stinks they're holding onto this. I wouldn't even mind it so much if they just did it for the ones that make the most sense instead of pretending that the last person who cared about the 1903 or 1909 World Series didn't die half a century ago.

 

[IU Hawks fan]

The whole natural rivals thing could have worked, but the overlap there wound up with too many non-rivals being forced together. The only reason the Bucs & Tigers are 'natural rivals' is because of a pair of World Series match-ups that predate the Titanic. When Pittsburgh & Cleveland play in each other's stadiums there's a massive attendance boost...but Cincinnati wanted the in-state rivalry and got it, leaving for a really unsatisfying game of musical chairs. Stinks they're holding onto this. I wouldn't even mind it so much if they just did it for the ones that make the most sense instead of pretending that the last person who cared about the 1903 or 1909 World Series didn't die half a century ago.

The only reason they're rivals is every other Central matchup lined up naturally, as either in-city, in-state, or on a border. The other option if the border took precedent over in-state for Cleveland would've paired Detroit & Cincy, so either way the Tigers were going to end up with someone random to them.

 

[KevFu]

It's really dumb for MLB to do what they're doing with the schedule; but MLB breaks things in baby steps. Introducing all 15 teams in interleague every year erodes the AL/NL thing, so it's not as big a deal later when they dissolve AL/NL.

I agree that Manfred is hell-bent on radical realignment by geography; because he sees TV ratings trending downward and thinks he needs to make his league more like the NBA. Which is stupid because NBA is higher rated because the game itself is more exciting and baseball is more leisurely. But an NBA alignment is how he can be more like them.

But that's foolish. All these leagues are too big to play everyone in the games allotted, and despite having the most GAMES, MLB actually has a harder time from an "inventory" sense than NHL/NBA; because it's not 82 games vs 162 games. MLB is really assigning 54 to 56 SERIES each year.


Every league is trying to balance FAIRNESS (balanced schedule) and MONEY (TV start times, rivalry games). Mets/Yankees sells out, so no one cares that it's unfair that the Mets play the Yankees while their division rivals play lesser opponents.

But it's far less fair to play MORE GAMES vs teams you aren't eligible to take a postseason spot from. The division is most important, so of course division is the most games played. Most fans ARE sick of so many games vs division opponents; but that's (a) gunning for TV start times and (b) best for fairness.

Most fans want to see more LEAGUE games, not more INTERLEAGUE games. Baseball is in the unique spot of having a league far too big to play everyone in it, but not having massive calls TO PLAY everyone. Fans are totally fine with only playing HALF the opposite coast ever.

The whole "But you need everyone to visit everywhere, every season for the fans" is really dumb. It's 2022 and every game is on a reasonably priced MLBtv. I post on a Mets board with a ton of New Yorkers, some of them tried the "Trout/Ohtani visiting" thing and I said "There's an AL stadium RIGHT THERE in the Bronx. Have you ever once gone to Yankee Stadium to see an AL star?" And not a single one of them said they had.

AL/NL formed with a regionalization that made perfect sense. The "interleague rivals" show how well it was laid out: Each league has a team in NY, LA, CHI, Bay Area; Texas, Ohio, Florida, Missouri. Used to have one each in Canada and now it's one each in the DC/Virginia/Maryland market. Most MLB teams have a team from the other league within four hours.

 

[KevFu]

Playing everyone in the league once -- and radical realignment based on geography later -- is bad for travel, despite MLB claiming the opposite. And it's bad for TV times. It's also bad for attendance and bad for fairness.

TRAVEL
You're eliminating nearby road division games (2 of them), so you can play half the other league on the road too (farther distances).

You're also shrinking league series by a game to create more road series vs interleague opponents. Aka, you're playing MORE SERIES TOTAL, which is more flights; more time on airplanes.

TV TIMES.
You're going from 5 road series to the opposite division (W vs E, E vs W) to 7 one year, 8 the next.
The West teams are going from 12 road series vs the teams in East/Central divisions to 15.

Literally everyone in baseball gets more road games at 4 pm, 5 pm, 9 pm or 10 pm and less at 7 pm.

FAIRNESS
By reducing the number of four game series and playing more 3 and more 2 game series, you're increasing the chances someone misses an opponents' best starter. Huge difference between facing the Mets' Scherzer, deGrom and Bassitt vs the Mets Walker, Peterson and Williams.

Yes, everyone plays everyone now, which SOUNDS fairer, but it's now WHEN you play a team is going to matter a lot more. Baltimore, Seattle, Arizona... those teams were terrible in April, but are playing really good now. The Braves were mediocre the first two months and are playing .800 baseball now. While San Francisco, Milwaukee, LA Angles, NY Yankees... those teams were a lot better the first half of the season than the second.

ATTENDANCE
The reason that some interleague series draw really well is because those series are special events that happen once a year, or once every six years. You circle your calendar because if you don't go see Trout/Ohtani NOW, you've got to wait six years.

We can see this with Houston and Texas. Houston switched leagues. Here's average attendance for HOU vs TEX (both stadiums combined; removing COVID and Hurricane effected series) over 8-year spans

Both in AL: 31,293 (139 games from 2013-2019, plus 2022)
Interleague: 36,743 (48 games from 2005-2012)

And that's an in-state rival for bragging rights.


Everyone loves to point to the Trout/Ohtani or Crosby/Ovechkin effect. But for every team with an elite superstar, there's four teams without one. Sure, each team has good players, but Ohtani is a unicorn.

Not to mention that players change teams so much, you DON'T have guys who never visited somewhere. How many HOF guys played for just one team?

Baseball-reference HOF monitor leaders for players not yet eligible:
SEVEN of the top 10 hitters played in both leagues. The other three (Molina, Altuve and Trout) have played at least a road game at every MLB team. Molina's played in like 37 different stadiums; and Williamsport and San Juan.

EIGHT of the top 10 pitchers have played in both leagues. Other two, Kenley Jansen has pitched on the road vs everyone; and Kershaw has pitched on the road at 28 places. He's missed BAL, BOS; and his 4 starts at Texas were during the COVID neutral site World Series.

But sending the Dodgers to 15 AL cities every year doesn't guarantee he pitches at each stadium anyway; You've got a 40% chance of him not being scheduled to pitch!


Furthermore; the Trade Deadline. If it was so important to get everyone in every city... why do NO LEAGUES make sure that all interleague games are done BEFORE the trade deadline? Obviously, with 15 teams in each league, you need at least one interleague series happening at all times. But surely they could figure out a better rotation and then make the non-rival division series be early and the rival ones late?

Radically changing the schedule based on the argument that "Seattle fans deserve to get a visit from the Washington Nationals so they can see Juan Soto more than once every six years" only works if Juan Soto is guaranteed to show up. But that series was Aug 23 & 24 and he got traded to San Diego August 2.

 

[yada]

For every series you get with Trout and Ohtani, you are also giving up games with division rivals to have the Pirates, Reds, A's, Tigers, and Royals of the world too. Those guys don't sell tickets, or drum up much excitement

I will take more games against any of these teams vs seeing more mets, nats, phillies, and fish any day of the week. Im a braves fan but i don't need 50% of a 162 game schedule against 4 other teams im so happy for this change