For most of baseball history, the calendar was built around league and division rivalries. The American League and National League operated as two separate entities all the way up until 1997, and teams from opposite leagues didn’t see each other on the field unless it was October and the World Series was on the line. That old structure gave baseball its sense of tradition, but it also meant fans rarely saw stars from one league face off against the other until the very end of the year.
Even after interleague play was introduced in the late 1990s, the schedule was still heavily weighted toward divisional play. A team might see the clubs in its own division nearly twenty times a year, while playing certain opponents from the other league only once every few years. It created lopsided familiarity—fans got plenty of Yankees–Red Sox or Dodgers–Giants, but if you wanted to see the Angels and Phillies meet, you might be waiting a decade. For years, this was the way Major League Baseball operated, and fans seemed to be on either side of the format. Some fans were longing to see more interleague baseball, and some were not.
That changed in 2023, when MLB introduced what it calls the balanced schedule. The idea was simple but radical: give fans in every city a chance to see every team, every year. Instead of relying so heavily on division-heavy slates and rotating interleague matchups, baseball moved closer to the kind of calendar you see in the NBA or NHL, where everyone crosses paths in a single season.
Leagues/Divisions: American League and National League, each with 3 divisions of 5 teams (East, Central, West).
Intra-Divisional: 13 games against each division rival.
Intra-League: 6-7 games against the other teams in the same league.
Interleague: A 3-game series against every single team in the opposite league.
Playoffs: 6 teams per league, with the top 2 division winners getting a bye. The Wild Card series is a best-of-3, followed by a best-of-5 Division Series, and then best-of-7 for the League Championship and World Series.
The most noticeable change came in how often division rivals face each other. For decades, each team played its four divisional opponents 19 times apiece. That worked out to 76 of the 162 games locked into division play. It gave us familiar rivalries and plenty of head-to-head drama, but it also led to some clubs seeing each other so often that it dulled the excitement.
Under the new format, those matchups have been reduced. Each team now plays its divisional rivals 13 times each, for a total of 52 games. That’s still a big chunk of the season, but it opens the door for a more diverse slate of opponents. The old number (19 games) often left fans feeling like September was just a rerun of May; the new system spreads the schedule out in a way that feels fresher.
After divisional games, the next step is the rest of the league. Each team plays six games against six different teams and seven games against four teams within its league, adding up to 64 games in total. That way, a team still sees plenty of familiar competition within its own league, but without the overwhelming repetition that the older model created.
In the past, those numbers were different. Teams used to play 66 intra-league games, but when combined with the heavier divisional load, it left very little room for interleague play. That’s exactly what MLB wanted to change with the new approach.
The most dramatic shift has been in interleague scheduling. Instead of just a handful of series against one division from the other league and maybe a natural rival, each team now plays a three-game series against every single club from the opposite league. That means fans in places like Miami get to see Shohei Ohtani every year, and Chicago Cubs fans will see the Red Sox and Yankees every single season without waiting for a rotation to line up.
These interleague series alternate home and away each year. So if the Mets host the Mariners in New York one season, the following year they’ll travel to Seattle. The symmetry makes it easy to follow and ensures that fan bases across the country can see stars from every market.
Back in the old format, interleague games were capped at 20 total, and many of those were eaten up by geographic rivalries—the Yankees and Mets, Dodgers and Angels, Cubs vs. White Sox. Now, interleague play takes up a full 46 games, which is nearly a third of the schedule. That’s a major philosophical shift for a league that once prided itself on keeping the two leagues entirely separate.
The balanced schedule naturally leads into how the postseason is structured. At the end of 162 games, each league crowns its three division winners, plus three additional clubs that qualify as Wild Cards. That makes six playoff teams per league, twelve total across Major League Baseball (MLB).
The two division winners with the best records in each league are given a first-round bye. The four remaining teams square off in a best-of-three Wild Card round, with every game hosted at the higher seed’s ballpark. From there, the postseason expands into a best-of-five Division Series, followed by best-of-seven League Championship Series, and ultimately the World Series.
This format creates more meaningful games in September. In the old system, divisional head-to-heads often decided everything, since teams played nearly a quarter of their season within their own division. Now, because clubs see every opponent across the league, strength of schedule is more even and playoff races feel a little fairer.
Baseball purists sometimes bristle at the changes, pointing to tradition and long-standing rivalries. But the balanced schedule reflects where the sport is headed. It gives every fan base a chance to see every superstar, and it reduces the old problem where some divisions were considered “stacked” while others were weak simply because of uneven scheduling.
For writers and analysts, the old formula was easier to explain—fans really did love those simple breakdowns of 19 games here, 66 games there, and 20 games of interleague. The new version is more nuanced, but it better represents the reality of today’s game. Instead of waiting years to see certain opponents, fans can look forward to knowing that all 29 other teams will be on the calendar.
The way Major League Baseball makes its schedule has always reflected what the league values most. For decades, it was tradition and divisional rivalries. Today, it’s about access, balance, and making the sport more national. The balanced schedule might not be as straightforward as the old 76–66–20 breakdown, but it gives fans a richer, more varied season. And while the system will probably keep evolving, this format finally ensures that the game’s biggest stars don’t just belong to their home markets—they belong to the entire league, every single season.