Playing fewer AL East games should benefit the Yankees tremendously

The Yankees went 47-29 in American League East games last season, securing nearly half of their 99 wins against divisional foes. The .618 winning percentage against the four other AL East teams — who were no slouches, evidenced by a combined 339-309 mark — was legitimately impressive. Their division was the best in the American League and the Yankees still emerged with a winning record against each of Toronto, Tampa Bay, Baltimore and Boston.

Things will change for this upcoming season, when instead of playing 18 or 19 games against their AL East friends, the Yankees (and every other team in the league) will only share the field for 13 games with their divisional opponents. Instead of the calendar being loaded with intradivision matchups, each team now gets additional interleague fixtures and at least one series vs. every team in Major League Baseball.

Get ready to see the Giants and Phillies descend on the Bronx in April and the Yankees squaring off with Arizona and Pittsburgh down the stretch in September. It will take some getting used to — as will the newfound feeling of not seeing the Red Sox seemingly every other week — but the move has some sense behind it as well. In the interest of fairness, evening out the schedule creates a better chance for teams from stacked divisions to remain in the race. Consider the 2022 Giants, who tangled 19 teams each with their neighbors in Los Angeles and San Diego. The Giants had a miserable time, winning just ten of those 38 games and getting outscored by 46 runs.

Had those Giants had fewer dates with the authoritative Dodgers and Padres — and more with the also-rans of the American League, which will be the case moving forward — their final record of 81-81 could have very well included more wins. The Phillies snuck into the playoffs with 87 victories and matriculated all the way to the World Series. Who’s to say the Giants couldn’t have done the same if their regular season record wasn’t so decimated by two teams, which they were subjected to by the sheer force of geography?

For the Yankees specifically, experiencing more of the baseball world will create undeniable impacts of varying degrees. Outside of the obvious fact that their division has better teams than others, there’s also the park factors within the AL East that will become less of a thing. For hitters, that means not getting as many chances to take aim at the Green Monster and Fenway Park’s other hitter-friendly nooks and crannies, and their slugging percentages may also be hurt by losing a few nights at Camden Yards.

But that will potentially be a huge boon for the pitching staff, the position group that the Yankees have built themselves around. Not for nothing, trading in some artificial turf games for more natural grass could help Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton.

Outfielders have loathed turf games for generations, complaining about the negative effects it has on their knees and back. With these new alterations, the Yankees won’t have to put their pair of $300 million investments with notoriously big and finicky bodies on an unforgiving surface as much as they have in the past. Judge and Stanton might miss taking aim at the catwalks tucked into Tropicana Field’s roof, and the whole team will see a couple of their singles disappear now that they can’t scoot as many turf grounders through the Tampa Bay and Toronto infields, but the overall influence of avoiding those two indoor stadiums should be significant, especially since the Blue Jays and Rays both stand to be playoff contenders yet again in 2023.

That’s the overwhelming positive of fewer meetings with the AL East. Have you seen the state of the central divisions? In both leagues, the Midwest delegations feature some clubs that will not come anywhere close to matching the Yankees’ talent level. This might loom large in the final month of the season, where the Yankees have the luxury of nine games with the Tigers, Pirates, and Royals. What used to be a period defined by a never-ending stream of divisional games is now designed to make sure everybody gets a chance to play everybody. The Yankees finish up a three-game set at the Trop on Aug. 27 and then don’t play the Rays again for the rest of the season. They have the same number of interleague series in September (three) as they do AL East series.

Another interesting wrinkle here is the Yankees’ undying band of traveling fans, who have spawning grounds in every corner of the country. Not only do Yankee diehards on the other side of the Mississippi River get more chances to see their team, the team now has more road games which will undoubtedly be dominated by pro-Yankee chants. Cities like Cincinnati, Miami, Denver and Phoenix will now each play host to an out-of-town Yankee convention with much more regularity.

There is a debate to be had about whether it’s “good for the game” to eliminate six or seven installments of the historic Yankee-Red Sox rivalry from each summer, but for the Yankees, that means less time in the hostile, pressure-filled New England environment and more in places that will feel like a vacation with thousands of their most ardent supporters. Going to any Yankee road game is an in-person demonstration of just how serious and far-reaching the fan base is. Getting a chance to pillage through more stadiums every year should only make that delegation stronger, and the players will certainly take note of that.

This new schedule is going to be weird, but in the Yankees’ case, it should also help. Crossing paths 13 times with the Jays and 15 times with the Reds, Pirates, Cubs, Rockies and Diamondbacks should boost the win total. Unless the unfamiliarity breeds some surprise and those doormats can pull some upsets, the Yankees are in great shape to put together another outstanding regular season.

Unfortunately, the playoffs are still going to force them into difficult settings. But that’s something to worry about months from now, after they’re done laughing about how soft the bottom of the NL West is.