MLB natural rivals 2023
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It happens every year. You can mark it down on your calendar. Show The baseball season begins and April weather in Chicago and other northern cities turns back to winter. This results in games being played in less-than-optimal conditions, particularly when the opponent for the Cubs or other northern teams only comes through town once. We saw this last week when the Tampa Bay Rays visited Wrigley Field (and also Guaranteed Rate Field on the South Side) for a week, and as I noted in the recap to Wednesday’s soggy, rain-shortened game, weather conditions were awful for all six games the Rays played in Chicago:
Then the Cubs played a four-game series against the Pirates where one game was rescheduled due to rain and another delayed nearly an hour by rain. In all, the Cubs’ seven-game homestand had one nice day — Saturday, when temperatures briefly soared above 80 degrees. Some of this is unavoidable because with 15 teams in each league, there has to be at least one interleague series going on at all times. This occasionally results in situations like last week, where the Rays were scheduled to visit Wrigley in April. It also happened in 2018, when the Braves and Cubs played a game in perhaps the worst conditions ever at Wrigley — because it was Atlanta’s only visit and the forecast the next day was worse, and the league didn’t want to have to try to make up two postponements. It happened again in 2019, when a Cubs/Angels game scheduled for April 14 was snowed out, and the Angels had to fly from Seattle to Chicago for the makeup game, then return home to Anaheim the next day. None of this is optimal. This year’s schedule, and the way MLB has scheduled things since 2013, has 14 teams visiting Wrigley Field: The 10 other NL teams and the White Sox, Rays, Red Sox and Orioles. Now, Major League Baseball wants even more teams to make road visits, per this Jayson Stark article in The Athletic from last month:
If that schedule is in fact adopted, that would mean 18 different teams would visit Wrigley beginning in 2023 — the 10 other NL teams, the “natural” rival (in this case the White Sox), and seven of the 14 other teams in the AL (the Cubs would visit the other seven). That’s four more visiting clubs, every year, than there are now. This is just asking for trouble. This scheme would have 14 teams making exactly one visit to Wrigley Field. You can’t have all of those road games in the “good weather” months. Many of them are going to have to be in April, likely more than there are now. This is just asking for more weather postponements — or games played in awful weather conditions — in the 15 ballparks in cities without domed stadiums where weather can be bad in April: Both Chicago parks, both New York parks, Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia, Minnesota, Colorado, Kansas City, St. Louis, Baltimore, Washington and Cincinnati. Look, I understand why MLB wants to schedule this way. It’s an attempt to have all of MLB’s star players appear in every ballpark at least every other year, instead of once every six years (for some) the way schedules are drawn up now. This is an eminently reasonable idea. But with 15-team leagues, it’s just not feasible. When expansion comes — whenever that happens, and it still could be several years away — and 16 teams are in both the NL and AL, well, then it would be easy to schedule only divisional games in April. That way, if bad weather intervenes, makeup games could easily be rescheduled for future visits by divisional teams. Now, though? Do this scheduling scheme in 2023 and the inevitable result will be either more postponed games, more games played in horrendous weather conditions, or both. And in 2023, we’re not going to have a lockout and the MLB schedule will likely begin on Thursday, March 30. Brrrrr. MLB moguls ought to pay more attention to April (and March!) weather conditions in northern cities and wait until expansion comes to institute the proposed schedule listed above. PollMLB’s proposed new schedule format for 2023 and beyond...This poll is closed
759 votes total Vote Now Will MLB ban the shift in 2023?Major League Baseball passed a sweeping set of rules changes it hopes will fundamentally overhaul the game, voting Friday to implement a pitch clock and ban defensive shifts in 2023 to hasten the game's pace and increase action.
What are the MLB changes for 2023?The MLB has made it official that major changes are coming in their 2023 season. Starting next year the MLB will implement a pitch clock for the first time ever at the major league level. As well as a ban on defensive shifts and adopting larger bases.
Will every MLB team play each other in 2023?All teams are scheduled to play 162 games. This will be the first MLB season of a new balanced schedule in which every team will play each other at least once like in the NBA and NHL. The new balanced schedule includes 13 games against their division rivals and 52 games overall against division opponents.
What will MLB Schedule 2023 look like?The new schedule format includes 52 divisional games (previously 76), 64 other intraleague games (previously 66), and 46 interleague games (previously 20). Each team will play a four-game home-and-home series against their geographic interleague rival (think Mets vs. Yankees, etc.)
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