Article II - Schedules

[BHows]

Section A: Regular Season Schedule
Item A I: Schedule Breakdown
The schedule would contain 162 games and be played in 20 Scoring periods. It will consist of 18 periods of 8 games and 2 periods of 9 games (18*8+2*9=162).  The 162 games would be split up in the following manner:

• 56 games within division (14 x 4 opponents)
• 60 games against rest of league (6 x 10 opponents)
• 4 games against interleague "rivals" (4 x 1 opponent)
• 42 other interleague games (3 x 14 opponents)

19 games × 4 opponents in-division (76 games)
6 games x 10 interdivision games within-league (66 games)
20 inter-league games (16 vs a division from the other league (rotates annually) and 4 vs a "natural rival" (See below for a current list of natural rivals)

Item A II: Natural Rivals

• Baltimore and Washington
• Boston and Atlanta
• New York Mets and New York Yankees
• Miami and Tampa Bay
• Toronto and Philadelphia
• Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox
• Cincinnati and Cleveland
• Detroit and Pittsburgh
• Kansas City and St. Louis
• Milwaukee and Minnesota
• Houston and Arizona
• Los Angeles Angels and Los Angeles Dodgers
• Oakland and San Francisco
• San Diego and Seattle
• Texas and Colorado

Section B: Regular Season Tiebreakers

• If two or more teams in a division are tied for a playoff spot then the order of tiebreakers is determined by:
  
  • Head to head record
  • Divisional record (Win%)
  • Fantasy points scored
• Two or more teams not in the same division that are tied for a playoff spot use fantasy points scored as the sole tiebreaker.

Section C: Playoff Schedule
Item C I: Playoff Teams and Seedings
At the end of the regular season, twelve teams will advance to the playoffs.  In each league, the three division winners and the three remaining teams with the best record (wildcards teams) will make the playoffs and will be seeded as such:

• No. 1 seed: Best league record
• No. 2 seed: Second-best division winner
• No. 3 seed: Third-best division winner
• No. 4 seed: Best record among Wild Card teams
• No. 5 seed: Second-best record among Wild Card teams
• No. 6 seed: Third-best record among Wild Card teams

Item C II: Wild Card Series Week #21

• For the Wild Card Series, the No. 3 seed will face the No. 6 seed, and the No. 4 seed will face the No. 5 seed.
• The Nos. 1 and 2 seeds will receive first-round byes and advance directly to the Division Series.

The two non-division winning teams with the best records in each league will play each other to determine the Wild Card entrants.

Item C III: NLDS/ALDS Week #22

• The No. 1 seed will face the winner of the Wild Card Series between the Nos. 4/5 seeds, while the No. 2 seed will face the winner of the Nos. 3/6 series.
• The #1 and #2 best teams in each league have home-field advantage in the NLDS/ALDS

1.) The team with the best record in each league will have home field advantage against the team with the worst record in the league.  However, such an opponent cannot be a team in that team's division. In this event, the team with the best record would play the Division Winner with the worst record.

Item C IV: NLCS/ALCS Week #23

• Winners of NLDS and ALDS
• The team with the home-field advantage is the division winner with the better record.

Item C V: World Series Week #24 & 25

• Winners of NLCS and ALCS
• Home-field advantage in the World Series is indicative of which real life team won the MLB Allstar game that season.

Article II Update Log
Adopted 9/20/15
Part 1 Discussion
Part 1 Poll

Schedule Changes 3/7/23
Schedule Update Discussion
Schedule Update Poll

Playoff Update Adopted 3/7/23
Playoff Update Discussion
Playoff Update Poll