Scheduled Off-day Question

[kq76]

Say you were the GM or a player on a baseball team. Your next 3 series are all 3 games/days long, but you start on the road, go home, and then leave again. You get one off-day in that period. Would you prefer it between the first 2 series or between the last 2 and why?

I'm thinking I'd rather fly home late after the last game of the first series, take a nap at home, and then play at home. Then before the third series we can take our time getting there and have a full sleep at the hotel. At home everything is more known so it should be easier being crunched for time.

Or am I missing something? Teams don't normally fly to a city the morning of an away game to save on hotel costs do they?

I know, I know, whether the last game of the series is an afternoon game might influence your decision, but let's say all the game times are the same, at night.

[koohead]

If those were my only choices, then yes, I'd rather have the off day before that final away series. Having a day off before games 7,8,9 is better than a break before 4,5,6.

[gmo]

Of course any given particular situation could keep from having that choice, and it reminds me of the question of preference for 3-day weekend Fri-Sun or Sat-Mon if you have the classic Mon-Fri work week. In my head I say I prefer to look forward to the offday for the full week, then come back from offday to a short week, so Sat-Mon.

In this case I think I would also go with before the road series to use "free" time to pad around traveling away.

For this exact situation and with the ability to slide the middle series either way, in making a schedule this would be a open choice. It would probably come down to which way would provide more balance between the number of games played league-wide on those two potential offdays.

When it comes to multi-series homestands, along these lines one of my guidelines is minimizing the number of offdays within the homestand to make the theoretical travel schedule more relaxed. In an example of an away series, *two* home series, then away series, then where there is a choice I would make a point to put any offday between the first away series and first home series or between the second home series and the second away series rather than between the home series.

It would be interesting to see a player survey covering the original question and the within-homestand offdays case. Opinions probably span the whole range. For the original I have no idea. For the within-homestand question, stereotyping a bit, I can imagine older guys with families preferring tighter travel schedule to give more time off at home and younger guys liking more cases with an offday for travel that allows for an evening free in the new town before game tomorrow.

Sorry to go on further in different directions, but using the gametimes is something else I have moved toward doing for sort of maximizing time for travel. After offdays are already settled, if there is a situation where both teams (or potentially even just one team) play somewhere else tomorrow, make their game against each other today in the afternoon. I think that is more done in real MLB than my minimize offdays within homestands.

[kq76]

Originally Posted by gmo

Of course any given particular situation could keep from having that choice, and it reminds me of the question of preference for 3-day weekend Fri-Sun or Sat-Mon if you have the classic Mon-Fri work week. In my head I say I prefer to look forward to the offday for the full week, then come back from offday to a short week, so Sat-Mon.

I think you're right. I think most people would probably want the pain earlier and to look forward to the free time later. Before posting I asked my wife and she immediately said, "later to have something to look forward to", but she said it so fast I didn't think she was bothering to think it through. But instead, I was over-thinking it.

Originally Posted by gmo

For this exact situation and with the ability to slide the middle series either way, in making a schedule this would be a open choice. It would probably come down to which way would provide more balance between the number of games played league-wide on those two potential offdays.

That was actually the impetus for the question. I've based my schedule making workbook largely off of your blogposts (thank you! I don't think I would have gotten far without them) and once I get to your point of deciding whom to advance a day and whom not to (I have a bunch of Thursdays with no games scheduled so I'm deciding which series before Thursday to advance a day) I developed a logic to it awhile ago, but now that I'm on version 3 I'm trying to see if it can be improved upon. But it seems the original logic, some of which I just settled on for fear of getting stuck at that time, actually might be the best after all. This is a quote from my notes:

"I'd say advance x-a first (an away team is coming home then staying home so they might as well use the off-day as a travel day), then s-a (the home team stays home 3 series in a row so they'll have a non-travel offday either way before or after), then, if necessary, x-x (an away team is coming home and then leaving again so moving them would eliminate their travel day), and try to leave s-x where they are (a home team is staying home then leaving so leave that offday for a travel day). So an a always comes first. If you can't make up your mind between 2 similar options, maybe look at whether the away team, from the series/row in question, is going home and, if it is, consider getting it home sooner by advancing that series."

The #-# code is just the result of a formula comparing what a team is doing over 3 rows/series with the middle row/series being the considered for being moved or not.

Originally Posted by gmo

When it comes to multi-series homestands, along these lines one of my guidelines is minimizing the number of offdays within the homestand to make the theoretical travel schedule more relaxed. In an example of an away series, *two* home series, then away series, then where there is a choice I would make a point to put any offday between the first away series and first home series or between the second home series and the second away series rather than between the home series.

Yeah, I see what you're saying. I can't remember exactly how you built your schedule now, but the way I've done mine is if all series can be 3-game series, then fine, go with that. And then that means most of them (not including at the beginning and the ASB) first get schedule Mon-Wed and Fri-Sun and then I move the former around. So I'm not (yet?) comparing 4 series in a row, only at most 3. I think my logic is, essentially, trying to do the same as yours although it can't tell where that team is playing its 1st or 4th series.

I do, however, have the problem that I've found it pretty much necessary to schedule 27 weeks instead of 26 because of all the offdays and I figure it's probably a lot easier to move around series within 27 weeks than it would be 26. I imagine, however, that the next complication I might tackle is to make a good chunk of series 2-game series as that way teams could play a handful of 7-game weeks which could shave off a week of the schedule. I don't suppose you've found a different/better solution to that have you?

Originally Posted by gmo

It would be interesting to see a player survey covering the original question and the within-homestand offdays case. Opinions probably span the whole range. For the original I have no idea. For the within-homestand question, stereotyping a bit, I can imagine older guys with families preferring tighter travel schedule to give more time off at home and younger guys liking more cases with an offday for travel that allows for an evening free in the new town before game tomorrow.

Yeah, that's where my thinking was going, people would rather be at home most of the time, but only briefly in my life was I a party animal so I didn't see that angle. Of course, I'm pretty sure management, whom might have at least some say in schedule making, should prefer to be at home as much as possible to cut down on costs and possibility of players getting into trouble on the road.

Originally Posted by gmo

Sorry to go on further in different directions, but using the gametimes is something else I have moved toward doing for sort of maximizing time for travel. After offdays are already settled, if there is a situation where both teams (or potentially even just one team) play somewhere else tomorrow, make their game against each other today in the afternoon. I think that is more done in real MLB than my minimize offdays within homestands.

Yeah, I was thinking I might do that one day. I stuck with all Sunday games at 1:05 and all others at 7:05 as it didn't seem worth it at the time to alter them further. I did look at a couple of real schedules to see if I could spot a pattern for why some non-Sunday games started early and I remember it actually seemed somewhat random. I have to imagine I looked at whether the home team was leaving or not, but I'm sure I didn't consider whether the away team was playing the next day or not. Is that the only factor you've found?

[gmo]

Originally Posted by kq76

The #-# code is just the result of a formula comparing what a team is doing over 3 rows/series with the middle row/series being the considered for being moved or not.

I gave an example as a case of a 4-series set, but really it is the same 3-series logic. The AHHA is the AHH part where I would want the offday between AH or the HHA part where I would want the offday between HA.

The positions of the series in the weeks matter. Like you describe, there is an early week series that can be shifted and a late week series that is locked in to end on Sunday. So I do my check on early week series sandwiched by the previous and next weekend series I think pretty much same as you describe...

• HH_H - keep or make H_HH, does not matter
• HH_A - keep
• AH_H - make A_HH
• AH_A - keep or make A_HA, does not matter

The underscore represents the offday, either Monday if earlier or Thursday if later. For the "does not matter" cases I will try to shift more or not to try roughly to balance the offdays earlier versus later in the week. I only apply the logic for the home team for the early week series because my key criterion is minimizing offdays within homestands.

Something I resist doing but that can pop up is a situation where my logic says to make a wraparound series that stretches into Monday. MLB has that sometimes, but I have not investigated how often those happen. The classic "wraparound" definition is 4-game Fri-Mon...

Originally Posted by kq76

I've found it pretty much necessary to schedule 27 weeks instead of 26 because of all the offdays and I figure it's probably a lot easier to move around series within 27 weeks than it would be 26.

Sounds like you are talking about doing 162 games in 54 half-week 3-game series, thus 27 weeks (not counting an All-Star Break). Some years back the labor agreement shifted MLB to having 52 half-weeks - it was 51 when I first started making schedules. So those now 6 "extra" games from the "extra" week are most conveniently spread into making 4-game series.

For 12 teams in two 6-team divisions, an obvious breakdown of 162 games is 18 games times five intradivision opponents and 12 games times six interdivision opponents. Instead of making all 3-game series though, a week can be trimmed by sacrificing some of the perfect mathematical balance to have 8H & 10A against one division opponent and 10H & 8A against another. Instead of six 3-game series, for those two opponents it is five series, with three of them being 4-game.

The 4-game series can block movement. One itself will not be moved. Except I feel like I should be more open to allowing Fri-Mon, which requires moving or having moved the early week series in that next week. In the usual early week cases there will be instances my logic says to move the early week series to Tue-Thu because of the home team layout, but it is blocked because of the away team already having a Thu-Sun series.

I am not a fan of 2-game series in building. Early on I used to do 2/2/3 weeks (Mon-Tue, Wed-Thu, Fri-Sun) more often. Smaller series can help counts come out more ideally. That 18 games I split 10/8 or 8/10 above could be kept 9/9 by having the 9 games be like 2/3/4. But pairs of 2-game series I would only put early week which limits flexibility. I already have more single series homestands that I wish, and those pairs can lead to cases of 2-game trips with no offday on either side.

I am more open to the occasional standalone 2-game series early week. The ideal may be 46/6 split of 3-game series and 4-game series. But maybe like 2023 MLB you need to have one opponent 2H & 2A. So to make those two short series you can make two more 4-game series - 2 * 2 + 42 * 3 + 8 * 4 = 162. I prefer to have 2-game series followed by a weekend 4-game series, in which case the logic for positioning the 2-game series is same as above. If a team then has only a 3-game weekend series I force it to be Tue-Wed & Fri-Sun to keep from having consecutive offdays.

The non-3-game series allow can be distributed unevenly to allow for teams having played different number of games at a given time, and more half-games in the GB standings column. I like that variety and not having everybody having played the same X games after every Sunday.

Originally Posted by kq76

Yeah, I was thinking I might do that one day. I stuck with all Sunday games at 1:05 and all others at 7:05 as it didn't seem worth it at the time to alter them further. I did look at a couple of real schedules to see if I could spot a pattern for why some non-Sunday games started early and I remember it actually seemed somewhat random. I have to imagine I looked at whether the home team was leaving or not, but I'm sure I didn't consider whether the away team was playing the next day or not. Is that the only factor you've found?

Gametimes are a relatively new thing for me to tinker with - I had been happy making everything 7pm. I have not done real research (common theme), mostly just going off vibes. I know people like to see have weekend day games. And the getaway day thing feels right.

I made logic to allow random setting of gametimes. E.g., make it so every Sunday has 60% chance of 1pm, 25% of 4pm, 15% of 7pm. It is from random number generation case-by-case, so the distribution will not be perfectly those percentages.

For getaway days, if I turn on changing the gametime it can be "either" or "both" mode. Of course since the away team has to travel somewhere else, "either" mode would mean always shifting unless the away team is off the next day plus the home team is off or still at home. That seems too frequent, so I doubt I would use it much.

I am pretty sure MLB has some rules/guidelines for gametimes & offdays for teams traveling from west coast to east coast, like to keep from playing in Oakland one night then Boston the next night. Doing that in a build would add more difficulty, so nice just to assume that never know where teams are.

[kq76]

I did read your post, but my brain is mush right now (from a long day trip to the states). I'm sure I'll come back to it and read it several times, but I just wanted to say thank you now, for all your thoughts, just in case I don't respond to it for awhile.

And just to remind myself: I mean to ask you your thoughts on schedule ratios one day. I'll figure out how best to put it into a question another day.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by gmo

I am pretty sure MLB has some rules/guidelines for gametimes & offdays for teams traveling from west coast to east coast, like to keep from playing in Oakland one night then Boston the next night.

Indeed it does. This is specified in Article V of the CBA, mostly in the C. Additional Scheduling Agreements section.

Even though it's been a year since the latest CBA was reached, the text of the 2022-2026 CBA still has not yet been publicly released. The more recent earlier CBAs are available and can be found online.