The MLB Needs to Change the Schedule
Rob Manfred and the Major League of Baseball continue to make new changes to the game of baseball every offseason. They’ve changed rules to help the pace of a game, and they have also changed the schedule structure. In 2018, they had the season start the earliest they’ve ever started, March 29th. This was due to the agreement they came to with the players to give them a few more days off during the duration of the long and tiring season.
Something that was noticed last year more than ever was how cold it truly was at the start of the MLB season in certain cities. The Yankees would start in New York, the Indians would start in Cleveland, and so forth. All of the cold weathered teams would seemingly play other cold weathered teams. It made for some brutal baseball to watch. Many people couldn’t wait until their team went on the road to a warm place or a stadium with a roof on it. Meanwhile, the Rangers would play Houston to start the year. The Dodgers would play the Diamondbacks. San Diego would go up against San Francisco. It was puzzling on why the schedule would possibly be set up this way.
The 2019 season rolls around, and they started the season a day earlier than the season prior, and we still have the same schedule setup. Los Angeles and Arizona, San Diego and San Francisco, Anaheim and Oakland, just to name a few. Meanwhile, they had Minnesota start at home in the freezing tundra of the Twin Cities. The Yankees started at Yankee Stadium where all their fans were covered in numerous amounts of coats and blankets. The players themselves look like they’re ready for the Winter Olympics with all the gear and ski masks that they are wearing.
There were a few instances where the MLB got it right this season. That was only in the first series, too. One could argue that the cold weather teams should start on the road for two weeks going to the south, or the west coast. The players clearly don’t want to be there. The games fly by because the hitters are swinging at everything. It makes for awful baseball to watch for fans who are brave enough to go to the stadium, or for the ones who watch on TV. There are a lot of 2–1 games that rarely go three hours. Meanwhile, the Dodgers are hitting home runs left and right in the beautiful California climate.
The MLB needs to change the schedule. It is not fair to the players or the fans. Teams often get off to shaky starts if they are playing in this cold weather. Baseball is all about momentum and when players are on hot or cold streaks, they sometimes stay with those for a while. There are more than enough warm weather teams or teams with roofs on their stadium to go around. While we’re at it, can we please just have all teams face one another at least once a year? It would be good for the sport to get the players exposed to new fanbases in both the NL and the AL. There are 162 games in a season, there is no reason to not play every team in the MLB, but I digress.
There is plenty of good baseball left, no doubt. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. It just would still be nice to not have to watch players who look like they’ve been frozen to the bench who clearly don’t want to be at the ballpark. And who can blame them? Baseball isn’t meant to be played in 30 degree weather.
