Starting last year, MLB adopted a new, more “balanced” schedule meant to achieve several things:
- Every team now faces every other team every season, alternating home and away series for interleague matchups. This was billed as letting every city’s fans see every MLB superstar at least every other year — that is, if they’re a position player who stays on the same team and doesn’t get injured. Previously, teams would only face their “natural rivals” and all the teams from one of the other league’s divisions in interleague play.
- Reduce the number of intradivision matchups, which had gotten tedious and led to stark imbalances in wildcard races from 19 per season to 13.