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Winners and losers from MLB cancellations

By Bill Felber

Feb 28, 2022; Jupiter, FL, USA; Major League Baseball Players Association executive director Tony Clark, left, and New York Mets pitcher Max Scherzer, center, arrive for negotiations with the players union in an attempt to reach an agreement to salvage March 31 openers and a 162-game season, Feb. 28, 2022, at Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter, Florida. Mandatory Credit: Greg Lovett-USA TODAY NETWORK
Feb 28, 2022; Jupiter, FL, USA; Major League Baseball Players Association executive director Tony Clark, left, and New York Mets pitcher Max Scherzer, center, arrive for negotiations with the players union in an attempt to reach an agreement to salvage March 31 openers and a 162-game season, Feb. 28, 2022, at Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter, Florida. Mandatory Credit: Greg Lovett-USA TODAY NETWORK /
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With the cancellation Tuesday of the first week of the 2022 MLB schedule, Major League Baseball has inadvertently produced the season’s first winners and losers.

The biggest losers, obviously, are the game’s fans. Beyond the mere fact that 92 games have been erased, that axed first week was to produce some of the game’s flagship series. Those series will now disappear.

Notable in that respect, a three-game opening weekend replay of the 2021 division series in which Boston beat Tampa Bay goes by the boards. The two teams were supposed to meet in Boston. Now the Rays’ first visit to Boston will not take place until the July 4 weekend.

An anticipated series between NL West contenders San Francisco and San Diego also is scrapped.  Now the Giants won’t see the city of San Diego until July 8.

Cubs fans just lost their first two opportunities to renew their hatred of the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cards were supposed to visit Wrigley Field on April 4 and 6. Now the Chicago portion of that rivalry won’t be renewed until June 2.

The two Vegas favorites in the American League, the Yankees and Astros, were supposed to meet for three games in Houston. With the cancellation of those games, MLB’s expected two best clubs will meet only once this coming season, in late June in New York.

The World Series winning Braves had been scheduled to meet their closest challengers for divisional supremacy, the Mets, April 4 and 5. With the cancellation of that series, Mets fans will only see the champs twice, in early May and early August.

Here’s a division-by-division breakdown of which teams appear to be most helped and most harmed by the cancellations.

AL East: There are no big winners, but by not having to travel to Boston to play the Red Sox, the Tampa Bay Rays probably benefit more than any other AL East team from the loss of six games. Aside from that series, the Rays also do not have to make an opening week trip to Toronto, another divisional rival expected to be on the ascendancy this season.

The Yankees are the division’s biggest losers. The Yanks were supposed to open with four games in Arlington against the lowly Rangers. Instead, the altered schedule calls for them to play the Rangers only three times all year while every divisional rival gets six or seven shots at fattening up against the Rangers.

AL Central: In a division with one team projected to dominate, the White Sox are natural losers from the schedule change. Chicago loses a three-game home series with the Twins plus three games in Kansas City. Those two teams combined to prop up the bottom of the AL Central in 2021.

Below Chicago, the division is so balanced that there are no obvious winners. Perhaps the Twins have the most to gain, scrapping series with the Sox and Cleveland Guardians.

AL West: As with the AL Central, there are no clear winners in this division. But there is a clear loser, the Astros. They lose that marquee home series with the Yankees and also lose three interleague home games against the Phillies.

NL East: Identifying this division’s biggest loser is easy; it’s the champs.  The Braves lose that big series in New York, and also lose a four-game trip to Miami.

The division’s biggest benefactors are probably the Washington Nationals. The 2019 World Series champs had a rough 2021, and their opening week assignments were not designed to regain footing: divisional meetings with the Mets and Phillies. That’s five tough divisional foes the Nats do not have to face.

NL Central: The Brewers take the division’s hardest hit. Milwaukee loses seven home games, four against the soft-touch Arizona Diamondbacks plus three headline meetings with the Giants.

There are no big winners in this division unless you count the Pittsburgh Pirates. Their divisional series with the Cardinals and Reds, both plausible NL Central contenders are scrapped.

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NL West: There is no question which of MLB’s 30 teams is hurt most by the first week’s cancellations. It’s the Los Angeles Dodgers. They lose seven home dates, and those seven were to be against the two weakest teams in their division, the Rockies and Diamondbacks. Now the Dodgers won’t host Arizona until mid-May; Colorado doesn’t return until July 4.

That makes the Giants the division’s winners by default. San Francisco’s schedule loses a pair of perilous opening week series: four games in San Diego followed by three in Milwaukee. In the revised schedule, the Giants don’t go to San Diego until July and don’t have to travel to Milwaukee at all.

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