Summary: How the regular season schedule is created and what you need to know about it.
About the Regular Season
Each regular season has a 160 game schedule spread out from April 2nd to September 28th. In a new league, the seasons usually start at the year 1981 and go on from there.
Structure of a Season
A team plays 50 three or four game series against the 23 other teams during the course of a season. The schedule is structured in the following chronological order:
# of Series | # of games | Opponent |
5 | 17 or 18 | Your division |
6 | 18 | Other division in your conference |
5 | 17 or 18 | Your division |
6 | 18 | Other division in your conference |
12 | 36 | Interleague play |
5 | 17 or 18 | Your division |
6 | 18 | Other division in your conference |
5 | 17 or 18 | Your division |
| | |
50 | 160 | Full Season |
The breakdown of how a series and schedule is constructed is below:
- In-Division Matchups:
- The team your facing is one of 5 other teams in your division.
- You open the season and close the season playing teams in your division.
- Each series against a team in your division is either 3 or 4 games long.
- A 3 game series against a team in your division happens twice a season (6 total games)
- A 4 game series against a team in your division happens twice a season (8 total games)
- You face each team in your division a total of 14 times (6 + 8) apiece per season.
- You play a total of 70 in-division games per season.
- Conference Matchups:
- A conference opponent is one of 6 teams from the other division that makes up your conference.
- Each series against a team is always 3 games.
- You face a team from your conference a total of 3 times per season.
- You play a total of 9 games per season against each conference team.
- You play a total of 54 conference games per season.
- Interleague Matchups:
- An interleague opponent is a team who is in the other conference that makes up your league.
- For roughly 1 1/2 months during the end of June and all of July teams will participate in interleague play against the other conference.
- Each team will play a total of 3 games per interleague matchup, for 1 series per season.
- Each team faces all 12 teams in the other conference.
- There is a total of 36 interleague games.
Grand Total: 160 games