NEW YORK — Every team will play each other in the same season for the first time next year as MLB switches to its first balanced schedule since 2000.
As a result of the format switch agreed to in the March lockout settlement between Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association, high-profile games between division rivals — such as the Atlanta Braves versus the New York Mets in the National League East — will be reduced from the current 19 played each season. Intradivision games will drop from 47% of regular-season meetings to 32%.
A team will host all of the other 29 clubs at least once every two seasons.
“I think it’s great for the fans,” Mets manager Buck Showalter said. “I’m so tired of playing the same people.”
MLB said Wednesday it will open the 2023 season on March 30 and again will try to have every team start on the same day, which has not occurred since 1968.
A team will play 13 games against each division rival for a total of 52 and six or seven against each other club in its league for a total of 64. The remaining 46 games are against interleague opponents: a home-and-road, two-game series against a so-called natural rival and a single three-game series against each of the 14 other clubs in the opposite league.
“This new format creates more common opponents, both in the division and among your league opponents, so that typically when you’re competing for the wild card, there’s a much higher percentage of common opponents across divisions,” said Chris Marinak, MLB’s chief operations and strategy officer. “And we think that equity is good for the competition on the field.
“On the marketing side, we think that the new schedule gives our fans more opponents at home, so they get to see a broader array of clubs in their ballpark. And probably more importantly, it gives us a chance for our star players to get exposure more nationally and be seen in more places throughout the season.”
The American League used a balanced schedule from 1977 to 2000 and the National League from 1993 to 2000, with interleague play starting in 1997 and limited to 15-18 games per season for each team. Bud Selig, the commissioner at that time, had pushed for a return to an unbalanced schedule.
The AL openers for 2023: Baltimore Orioles at Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox at Houston Astros, Cleveland Guardians at Seattle Mariners, Detroit Tigers at Tampa Bay Rays, Los Angeles Angels at Oakland Athletics and Minnesota Twins at Kansas City Royals.
The NL: Arizona Diamondbacks at Los Angeles Dodgers, Atlanta Braves at Washington Nationals, Colorado Rockies at San Diego Padres, Milwaukee Brewers at Chicago Cubs, New York Mets at Miami Marlins and Pittsburgh Pirates at Cincinnati Reds.
The other openers are interleague matchups, with the AL’s Toronto Blue Jays visiting the NL’s St. Louis Cardinals, the NL’s Philadelphia Phillies visiting the Texas Rangers and the NL’s San Francisco Giants visiting the AL’s New York Yankees.
Atlanta’s home opener is on April 6 against the Padres.
The schedule usually is updated with game times during the winter.
Next year’s start will mark the earliest since 2019. The season will revert to 186 days from the 182 it was shortened to this year due to the lockout.
Natural geographic interleague rivalries include Angels-Dodgers, Brewers-Twins, Cardinals-Royals, Cubs-White Sox, Giants-Athletics, Guardians-Reds, Marlins-Rays, Mets-Yankees and Nationals-Orioles.
MLB’s pairings for teams without natural rivalries include Braves-Red Sox — both have ties to Boston — Astros-Rockies, Diamondbacks-Rangers, Padres-Mariners, Phillies-Blue Jays and Pirates-Tigers.
Travel is roughly the same as the prior format, which had teams play 76 games against division foes, 66 against other clubs in the league (seven versus six teams and six against four teams) and 20 interleague.
“The bulk of what dictates your travel is the number of trips you take, and this doesn’t change the number of trips,” said Chuck Torres, MLB’s senior director of scheduling and broadcasting.
Other than within its own division, a team can host or visit a maximum of three teams from another division.
To combat exhaustion, each team was scheduled for seven off days among its last 67, three among its last 32 and one in its last 10.
MLB tried to have all 30 clubs play on the same opening day for four of the past five seasons.
Pittsburgh at Detroit and Washington at Cincinnati were rained out in 2018. For 2019, Seattle and Oakland started ahead of other teams with a two-game series in Tokyo.
In 2020, the season’s start was delayed to July 23 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the only game on opening night had the Yankees at Washington. In 2021, the Mets’ game at Washington and Baltimore’s game at Boston were postponed.
This year’s start was delayed from March 31 to April 7 because of the 99-day lockout that ended March 10, and only seven games were scheduled for opening day.
Every team is scheduled to play on Jackie Robinson Day, April 15, which falls on a Saturday.
The MLB All-Star Game will be at Seattle’s T-Mobile Park on July 11, eight days earlier than this year’s game at Dodger Stadium. The same site hosted the 2001 All-Star Game, and Seattle’s only other time with the Midsummer Classic was at the Kingdome in 1979.
No games are scheduled on the two days after the All-Star Game, creating a four-day break and leaving the second half to start July 14. The regular season ends Oct. 1.
There are two scheduled day-night doubleheaders: San Diego at Philadelphia on July 16 and the Dodgers at Colorado on Sept. 26. This year’s original schedule had one doubleheader, but 30 twinbills were added in the revisions caused by the lockout.
The Cubs and Cardinals play a two-game series at London’s Olympic Stadium on June 24-25, and the Phillies and Nationals play in the Little League Classic at Williamsport, Pennsylvania, on Aug. 20.