The way Major League Baseball has made its schedule year after year hasn’t changed much, but fans will see a difference come the 2023 season.
There were a slew of changes in the new collective bargaining agreement including a universal designated hitter and a ban of the shift. One change that seems to have gotten overlooked is how the league plans to balance out the schedule after this season.
MLB teams spend a majority of the 162-game season facing teams in their division with some interleague play scattered in here and there. For Boston Red Sox fans, this means they see the New York Yankees, Toronto Blue Jays, Tampa Bay Rays and Baltimore Orioles quite a bit and don’t see teams like Chicago Cubs, Los Angeles Angels or Los Angeles Dodgers all that often.
With players like Seiya Suzuki on the Cubs, Shohei Ohtani on the Angels and Mookie Betts on the Dodgers, fans likely want to see some of the best players throughout the league more than once every few years.
The Athletic’s Jayson Stark broke down how the 2023 schedule will look:
56 divisional games — 14 vs. each division rival
60 Games vs. Rest of League — 10 vs. each remaining team in league
46 Games of Interleague Play — 3 games apiece vs. 14 teams in other league; 4 games vs. “natural” rival
Commissioner Rob Manfred told reporters earlier this month the schedule in 2023 would be more balanced, and it certainly looks as if it will be.
When you have a division that’s as stacked as the American League East, a balanced schedule really could make a difference in the standings. In the past, stacked divisions get hurt because the teams all play each other while lesser teams in lesser divisions inflate their records against the league’s worst teams.
“The Rays, meanwhile, won 100 games last year — in a season in which games against teams that won 90 times or more made up 48 percent of their schedule,” Stark pointed out.
More balance will lead to more competition and more competition will lead to more fun.
Plus, with the expanded postseason, this new schedule will create a playing field that is much more even among playoff-contending teams.
And instead of seeing certain teams every three years or so, fans and MLB clubs will be able to see more of the NL teams and players they don’t normally get the opportunity to watch.
Everybody wins.
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