The 2024 Schedule

I should've known when MLB announced the locations and opponents for all of the international games in 2024 that the schedule release was around the corner.  And, sure enough, it was.  The full 2024 slate for all 30 clubs was unveiled on Thursday, the day before the current season resumed after the All*Star break. 

That's the craziest thing about MLB.  The other three (NFL, NBA, NHL) wait until the season is over so that they can set the TV matchups, etc.  The NFL has to wait since some opponents are determined by the previous season's final standings.  (Plus, the schedule release in May gives them another offseason "event" to promote.)  But in baseball, where they play pretty much every day and everybody plays everybody, they don't have to worry about that as much.  They're probably already working on the 2025 schedule, in fact.

Next season will be Year 2 of the new schedule format where every team in the Majors faces every other team.  And, as expected, they just flipped the interleague matchups.  So, the seven (non-partner) teams you played at home this season you'll play on the road in 2024 and vice versa.  That's what I love so much about this change.  Fans are guaranteed to see every opposing team come to their stadium at least every other year (how long have college football fans been complaining about this exact issue?).

Because of that we're getting things like Trout vs. Harper in Anaheim for the first time since 2017.  We'll see Dodgers-Red Sox at Dodger Stadium and Dodgers-Yankees at Yankee Stadium, and Yankees-Cubs at Wrigley.  Boston visits St. Louis on the 20th anniversary of the 2004 World Series.  Xander Bogaerts will return to Fenway for the first time as a Padre, and Francisco Lindor will make his first trip to Cleveland as a Met.  We don't know where Shohei Ohtani's gonna end up, but if it's a National League team and they visit the Angels, you can bet that'll be one of the most anticipated series of next season.

MLB even threw us a little curveball and scheduled an interleague series for Mexico.  I didn't think this would be possible under the current format since you play three-game series with everyone outside your division and those international trips are usually two-game series, but I failed to consider the home-and-home interleague series that everybody plays.  Some you're not touching (Yankees-Mets, Dodgers-Angels, Cubs-White Sox).  But there's no reason you can't take a non-rivalry pair and move one of those two-game sets.  Which is exactly what they did.  The Rockies and Astros will play in Houston and Mexico City instead of Houston and Denver.

Colorado will be the only team losing two home games next season.  Because what they're doing in London and Seoul is very clever.  When the Dodgers and Padres open the season in Seoul, San Diego will be the "home" team in Game 1 and the Dodgers will be the "home" team the next day.  Same with Mets and Phillies in London.  They'll each be the "home" team once.  This way, all four will still have two home series against their nearby rival (unlike the Cardinals, who only have one four-game home series with the Cubs this year since St. Louis was the "home" team for both games in London).

Speaking of the Cardinals, they'll give up a home game again next year to serve as the "home" team for a game against the Giants at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama.  Willie Mays played for the Negro Leagues' Birmingham Black Barons in that ballpark, so including San Francisco makes sense for that reason alone.  Will this become an annual Juneteenth celebration?  That's the real question.  Especially since the Field of Dreams Game should be returning in 2025.

No word yet on who'll be playing in the Little League Classic (they usually don't announce that until the Commissioner says it on-air during the current year's game).  I've long thought they should take advantage of Cincinnati's proximity to Williamsport and feature the Reds, especially now that they have Elly De La Cruz.  They're home against Kansas City on August 18 (which is the date), so it is possible, even if Reds-Royals isn't exactly the most attractive matchup for ESPN.

One of the two traditional 11 a.m. holiday games has an interesting little quirk.  The 4th of July is on a Thursday, so the Nationals playing the Mets at 11:00 is no problem since it'll be the final game of the series.  The Red Sox usually play a wrap-around series on Patriot's Day weekend so that they can play their 11 a.m. game on Patriot's Day Monday.  Next season, though, that will be the first game of a series against Cleveland.  I'm sure they'll still let them play at 11, but they usually don't allow the first game of a series to have an early start, so it's odd that they scheduled it that way (it's not like they didn't know when Patriot's Day is...or that the Red Sox play an 11 a.m. home game that day every year!).

When they announced the season would be opening in Seoul, I figured it would be two West Coast teams just because of the travel.  Picking the Dodgers makes complete sense since they're the global brand.  I love the choice of the Padres, though.  San Diego has underachieved this season, but is still one of the flashiest teams in baseball.  And they have Ha-Seong Kim, who's probably the best active Korean players in the Majors right now.

Those two games will be on March 20-21, marking the second time the Dodgers get an early start on the season with a pair of games overseas (they played the Diamondbacks in Australia in 2014).  And they'll bring us back to the pandemic days, when the KBO was the first league to start back up and we were all getting up early in the morning because there was live baseball being played somewhere (and, let's face it, because we had nothing else to do).

Everyone else opens a week later, with all 30 teams playing on March 28.  It'll be the earliest domestic Opening Day in MLB history (although, the original 2020 Opening Day was scheduled for March 26).  It'll also be the second straight year everybody plays on Opening Day (they also tried it last season, but there was a rainout).  I hope that trend continues.  Because Opening Day should be Opening Day for everybody.  Next season, they've added three special days (Jackie Robinson Day on April 15, Lou Gehrig Day on June 2, Roberto Clemente Day on Sept. 15) as days when everybody plays, as well as the 4th of July, which, frankly, should've already been the case every year.

There is one other little quirk on the schedule that I found interesting.  There are two scheduled doubleheaders.  The first is on May 8 in Oakland (Rangers-Athletics).  The other is on July 27 across the bay in San Francisco (Giants-Rockies).  I'm curious both about the reason why and if this is a trend that will continue.  (I'm also curious to see where the A's will play beyond 2024, but that's a totally separate issue.)

The 2024 All*Star Game is set for Arlington on July 16.  The interesting thing about that is Texas Governor Greg Abbott said very definitively that "no MLB event" would be held in the state after they moved the 2021 game out of Atlanta.  That stance has obviously changed, and the Rangers will get to show off their new ballpark.  And, speaking of stances changing, among the cities on the shortlist to host the 2025 All*Star Game...Atlanta.