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Among all the changes you’ll notice on the field in 2023 (pitch clocks, positioning bans, expanded bases, pickoff limits), there’s something quietly meaningful that might not be so obvious if you’re not looking. for it. For the first time since interleague play appeared in the majors in his 1997, the schedule is balanced. Every team plays against the other 29 teams at least once a year, and he visits each city at least once every two years.
This will make the wild card race more fair and the 5 fan bases yet I’ve never seen Shohei Ohtani come to town,” as it is now. But there are more interesting questions to ask in 2023, especially in the fact that the team will play 24 fewer games against his own division than before.
Think of the Phillies. Think of the Phillies, who won the Nationals (16-3) by one game. Think Guardian. 500 against the winning team, but a 58-36 blowout against the losing team, and he won AL Central by 11 games. Think Orioles, Blue Jays, and Rays. For decades, they’ve spent almost a quarter of their schedule against the Yankees and Red Sox. Who he faces matters, and with a balanced schedule who he faces in 2023 will be different than he may have faced before.
So: who wins here? Let’s work out the numbers.
What we did was take a breakdown of the 2023 schedule and compare it to the 2023 schedule as outlined here. right It’s under the old rule of playing more in divisions and less in leagues. (In that format, the opponents for interleague play were NL East vs. AL Central, NL Central vs. AL West in 2023, as he played against other league divisions in rotation once a year.) , NL West vs. AL East. how was it It’s a comparison to use rather than the 2022 schedule we’ve just observed, as FanGraphs’ Dan Szymborski made the first look last summer. If you really want to see the big ugly grid of what the schedule comparison looks like, check it out here.)
For example, the White Sox would have faced four AL Central rivals 19 times each and none against the NL West. Now they have each played 13 times in the division and against the NL West he has won 15 games. It’s easy to get his 2023 predicted win percentage for each team from FanGraphs and adjust the strength of the schedule numbers based on who, how often, and for which team, and how often. I intend to play as opposed to what otherwise would have been.
All of which gives us these results…
As you can imagine, it’s not a huge amount. Moreover, while there is generally a fairly strong relationship between predicted and actual outcomes, it has been found that predicted performance is not fully realized. But it could help turn the outcome of a game or two here and there, and that could be the difference between making the playoffs or going home.
It helps: Overall AL East and Overall AL West
It doesn’t matter much if: AL Central
It will hurt: no one makes sense
In this method, all 10 East and West teams are adjusted between .015 and .030 points of their schedule opponent strength. (It reads like this: The Orioles predicted opponent strength was .517, the most difficult in the game. Now, the predicted opponent strength is .490, the ninth It’s a +.027 boost for them.)
It all makes sense in the world Minimum Teams will be delighted because it is the toughest division in baseball. To illustrate that, consider the Blue Jays where he can chop off 24 games against the East. Either way, they had to play his four games against the Braves and he was already scheduled against NL West. But now his 24 games that were supposed to be against the Eastern Beasts ended up against a weak NL Central and the rest of his four NL East his teams.
the same inside AL waist, Four teams are currently predicting .500 or higher. Takes away his 24 matches against division rivals. This is especially good for Auckland, who don’t get the benefits of playing on their own. And replace them with a match against NL West and NL East (also very top heavy). , and see its benefits.
But for the relatively weak AL Central, it doesn’t seem that important. This is because those five teams were scheduled to face the NL East in his 2023 season. So these games are nothing new, instead a similarly weak NL Central and a somewhat depleted NL West (compared to previous years) with a team of the Dodgers and a very poorly predicted Rockies. We predict these five teams with little change.
To the point: Given the strength of East and West, it was already pretty hard to see Central send a team to the wild card, but this will only make it worse.
It helps: no one makes sense
It doesn’t matter much if: NL Central, NL West
It will hurt: NL East
Interestingly, the opposite is true. Interleague play has gone from him 12% of a team’s schedule to him 28%, and every win for one team is a loss for another, so it’s probably not all that surprising. All this has to be balanced somehow. The difference here is one of depth. Both leagues are somewhat similar in that the center is the weakest division, but the AL has 5 good teams in the east and 4 in the west, and the bottom halves of these divisions are thinner. Become. NL soon.
(Up to that point, 7 of the 11 teams with the lowest predicted win percentages predicted by FanGraphs were in the NL.)
of NL East However, it has similar advantages to AL East. For example, the Mets. They said he would have played 66 games against NL Central and the West, but now he’s playing 64 games, so it makes little difference. Same for four games against their previously scheduled interleague opponents, the Yankees. But instead of playing 76 games in their division, he now has only 52. This is somewhat wasteful as you lose the advantage of playing the weaker Marlins and Nationals while being able to avoid the stronger Braves and Phillies more. – A pair of teams that New York won 27 of his 38 games last season.
The missed 26 games have to go somewhere. Baltimore, Boston, Tampa Bay and Toronto all play against the AL East, which should be competitive or better. The AL West, which has four out of five clubs (all but Oakland) projected to be .500+ teams, has another 15 to face. That’s difficult.
in the NL Central, Almost the same as AL Central. It’s not a strong division and they were already scheduled to play AL West in 2023, so for more matches against AL East (which is bad) and AL Central (which is good) It’s a game trade within that department. thing), and it’s almost like a washout.
The league difference we see is NL West, This is not as beneficial as AL West. That’s because they were already slated to face the difficult AL East this year, with 24 division games to play. and AL Central (which is a good thing) and it’s almost like a washout. ” If it looks like Arizona won here, it’s just a projected increase of +.
To the point: This might actually help the wildcard contenders in the Central and West who were rightfully eyeing the Mets/Braves/Phillies trio.
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