#4

Much has been made in recent years of the disparity among interleague schedules. On the surface it is unfair that a team like St Louis and Milwaukee get their rivalry six pack against the lowly Royals and Twins while Houston gets pummeled with six versus the juggernaut Rangers. Furthermore the interleague matchups seemed to be scattershot with teams playing whoever fit rather than some natural order. This undoubtedly lead to scenarios where two teams in tight pennant battles had drastically uneven interleague schedules, with one playing multiple cellar dwellers and the other the opposing league’s finest.

The schedule-fairness issue is one for another day. (it will certainly be brought up in numerous broadcasts/blogs) While rivalry series and uneven league numbers (NL has 16, AL has 14) make it impossible to make everything completely even, MLB has done a much better job this year of keeping teams within divisions having similar schedules. ‘

Since this is a Braves blog I’ll dissect the NL East. The division is actually more fair than I can ever remember, with the NL East almost exclusively playing their counterparts in the AL East. These 2 divisions are clearly the best in baseball so it should be an interesting slate. Schedules Below:

Braves: 3 @ Tampa Bay, 3 vs Toronto, 3 vs Yankees, 3 vs. Baltimore, 3 @ Yankees, 3 @ Red Sox

Nationals: 3 vs. Baltimore, 3 @ Boston, 3 @ Toronto, 3 vs Yankees, 3 vs. Tampa Bay, 3 @ Baltimore

Marlins: 3 @ Cleveland, 3 vs Tampa Bay, 3 vs. Boston, 3 @ Tampa Bay, 3 @ Boston, 3 vs Toronto

Mets: 3 @ Toronto, 3 @ Yankees, 3 @ Tampa Bay, 3 @ Baltimore, 3 vs. Yankees

Phillies: 3 vs Boston, 3 @ Baltimore, 3 @ Minnesota, 3 @ Toronto, 3 vs Tampa Bay

Thoughts:

The Braves and Nats have almost identical schedules, with the only difference being us facing New York twice and them Baltimore twice. With Baltimore being better than usual, this isn’t too big of a discrepancy.

The Mets and Phillies play one less interleague series than the rest due to the inequity of the leagues

Marlins miss the Yankees but get a a tough series in Cleveland

While I wouldn’t call it easy, per se, the Phillies have the least difficult schedule of the bunch, avoiding the Yankees and getting the only easy series of any of the teams with a trip to Minnesota.

Given the inherent difficulties in cross league scheduling, this is as close to a fair playing field you will see for a division. The problem arises when 40% of playoff spots are deciding across the league. The Braves will go up against a team like the Giants for the Wild Card when San Fran gets 9 gimme games against Oakland and Seattle.