ON THE ROAD AGAIN

Baseball Savant has an exhaustive data visualization of exhaustion: The air travel paths of every big league team for the whole season. 

The animation for all the teams together at once does not offer much – it’s like a hurricane forecast spaghetti model. More worthwhile information is in the by-team table at the bottom of that page. 

The Seattle Mariners, way out there in the Pacific Northwest, lead the way with 50,308 miles of projected travel in the 2026 season. That’s nearly double the Pittsburgh Pirates 26,839 miles, lowest total among the 30 teams. 

Say what you will about the Midwest, but the travel is easier. That’s geometry. Or logic. 

It’s good to be in the Central divisions of either league. 

The Brewers, Cubs, Cardinals, Pirates, Reds of the National League Central are in a tight cluster. Same with the Tigers, Guardians, Royals, Twins, White Sox in the AL Central. That’s compared to the Mets having to fly to Miami, the Red Sox traveling to Tampa. Same thing with Phoenix headed to San Francisco. Seattle to Houston must be the longest in-division flight. 

That one’s particularly grim. There are a lot of miles betwixt Seattle and Houston, but more to the point they are separated by two time zones. That’s where the problem shows up.  

“Rapid long-distance east–west travel can desynchronize internal clocks from the external 24-h environment, resulting in symptoms collectively known as ‘jet lag’,” according to a statistical study called “How jet lag impairs Major League Baseball performance.”

I am no doctor or scientist, but I think this means traveling across more than one time zone, particularly west to east, makes you feel like crap. A team of players who feel like crap are probably going to have a hard time against a team not having those maladies. 

Symptoms “include poor sleep, fatigue, gastrointestinal disturbance, and impaired motor performance.” 

That’s no way to play baseball.  

Or describe baseball on the radio. Take care of yourselves, folks. It’s a long season.