Blue Jays: Can the Jays benefit from the new MLB schedule?

Will the Jays gain a strength of schedule advantage?

Common sense tells us that playing fewer games in the AL East is a considerable improvement to the Jays' schedule, and we are correct in that thinking.

Generally regarded as the toughest division in baseball, the AL East is a gauntlet year in and year out, and this is especially true right now.

Last season, the AL East was the strongest and most balanced division, finishing with the highest winning percentage in the game at .541. It was the only division with four teams over 80 wins and the only one where all five teams eclipsed the 70-win mark.

Baltimore has seemingly shed the label of the "division punching bag" and is on the verge of cracking open their competitive window. And even with Boston scuffling in the basement — who knows what version of the Red Sox will come out of Fenway this season? — they still managed 78 wins last year.

Mike Petriello of MLB.com recently did the math to show that the AL East and West divisions will benefit the most from the new 2023 schedule compared to the old format.

Baltimore will benefit the most, with their opponent's strength of schedule decreasing from .517 to .490, which works out to a +.027 boost. The Jays are right behind them, receiving a +.026 increase in ease of schedule.

One caveat is that the strength of schedule numbers were taken from FanGraphs' projected winning percentages. As such, they won't ever be perfectly accurate because they rely on teams performing to their projections. They can also change based on trades, injuries, roster moves, etc.

But projections are what we have to work with, and as Petriello reiterates, "there's generally a pretty strong relationship between projected outcomes and actual outcomes."

Regardless, the Jays and the entire AL East will benefit from playing fewer games against each other and more games against weaker NL teams and divisions. This means more wins to go around the entire division, so winning the division will still be challenging.

However, Petriello points out that it also increases AL East teams' odds of securing a Wild Card spot:

It was already pretty hard to see the Central sending a team to the Wild Card, given the strength in the East and West, and this only exacerbates that.

Although the Jays are already favored to make the playoffs, Petriello's analysis puts them in an even more favorable position to make the postseason for a second straight year.

Next, we look at how the new schedule will alter the travel for the Jays and the other AL East teams.

How will the new schedule affect the Jays' travel plans?

The new schedule will create more travel league-wide.

As Baseball Savant's Travel Schedule Visual tool shows, MLB teams will cover 1,073,332 miles, an increase of 73,399 miles from 2022.

This increase does include a combined 16,000 miles in round-trips to London, England, for the Cardinals and Cubs, but it's still a hefty jump.

We all know that professional athletes don't travel like the rest of us. However, it still takes a toll and can affect physical and cognitive performance, according to a study by Aaron Lee and Juan Carlos Galvez of the Vanguard MacNeal Hospital Sports Medicine Fellowship and published by the National Center for Biotechnology Information. Without getting into the science here, they conclude:

Prolonged travel imparts a physical and cognitive toll on traveling athletes and may adversely affect performance in competition. Mood, cognition, and some measures of performance are adversely affected by jet lag and circadian disruption.

As for the Jays' travel plans, first the bad news.

The team will travel 31,465 miles this season, 1,585 miles farther than in 2022. However, that's only the 18th largest increase in travel miles (the Giants are adding 11,084 miles!).

They open the season on the road in St. Louis and Kansas City. They then head to the west coast for a single series against the Angels before returning home. Not exactly an efficient use of a trip across the continent. Whether this is a quirk due to the new schedule, or MLB's scheduling algorithm doing its usual thing, it's not an easy way to start the season.

The good news is that despite that strange first road trip, the Jays have the fewest miles to travel compared to the other AL East teams.

While we can't measure or quantify how the difference may affect the season's outcome, less travel is easier than more travel, so the Jays have whatever advantage exists in this regard.

It could be a well-made defensive decision, a mental blunder by a division rival, or just less accumulated fatigue and fewer let-down games following long nights of travel; an advantage is an advantage, no matter how small.

As Blue Jays fans are painfully aware, an extra run here or there and one more game in the win column can mean the difference between playing postseason baseball or going home. So we'll take any advantage we can get.