MLB Teams with the Worst Travel Schedules
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We calculated the linear miles traveled by each MLB team during the 2024 regular season to find the most grueling schedules.
About this analysis. This is offers.bet’s own analysis of the 2024 MLB regular-season schedule, first published in March 2024. The mileage figures apply to that season. Schedules change every year, so the ranking for later seasons will differ.
For Major League Baseball players, the season can be grueling.
It is not only the time on the field that makes the season long. It is also the time spent traveling from one ballpark to the next.
The 2024 MLB regular season opened with the Seoul Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres on March 20, followed by Opening Day for all 30 clubs on March 28, and ended on September 29. Each team played 162 games, nearly twice as many as an NBA team and more than nine times as many as an NFL team.
On average, MLB teams traveled almost 35,000 miles that season. But which teams traveled the most?
Offers.bet, a sportsbook resource, examined every MLB regular-season game to find the teams with the most grueling schedules. Our analysis calculated the linear miles traveled by each team across the regular season.
Highlights
- Teams in the West, South and Southeast dominated the top 10 for miles traveled.
- The Seattle Mariners topped the list with 47,441 travel miles, nearly 1,800 miles more than the No. 2 team, the San Francisco Giants (45,642 miles), and nearly twice as many as the Pittsburgh Pirates (26,411), who traveled the fewest.
- On average, MLB teams traveled 34,952 miles during the 2024 regular season.
It is probably no surprise that West Coast teams had the busiest travel schedules.
According to our analysis, more than half of the teams in the top 10 were based in California or Washington.
Top of the list were the Seattle Mariners. Overall, the Mariners traveled 47,441 miles during the 2024 regular season, nearly 1,800 miles more than the Giants and 12,489 miles more than the league average.
On average, the Mariners covered 4,313 miles per road trip. Their longest road trip by distance was 5,839 miles: Seattle to Cleveland, Cleveland to Miami, Miami to Tampa Bay, and back home.
Rounding out the top 10 were the San Francisco Giants (45,642), San Diego Padres (45,629), Los Angeles Angels (45,242), Oakland Athletics (45,041), Los Angeles Dodgers (43,152), Arizona Diamondbacks (41,667), Miami Marlins (41,074), Houston Astros (37,214) and Texas Rangers (36,074).
The teams with the lightest schedules were mostly in the Midwest or the center of the country: the Pittsburgh Pirates (26,411), Cincinnati Reds (27,477), St. Louis Cardinals (27,613), Chicago Cubs (28,007) and Washington Nationals (29,118).
Which MLB Teams Travel the Most?
| Rank | Team | Total miles, 2024 regular season | Average miles per road trip |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Seattle Mariners | 47,441 | 4,313 |
| 2 | San Francisco Giants | 45,642 | 3,511 |
| 3 | San Diego Padres | 45,629 | 3,259 |
| 4 | Los Angeles Angels | 45,242 | 3,480 |
| 5 | Oakland Athletics | 45,041 | 3,753 |
| 6 | Los Angeles Dodgers | 43,152 | 3,319 |
| 7 | Arizona Diamondbacks | 41,667 | 3,205 |
| 8 | Miami Marlins | 41,074 | 3,160 |
| 9 | Houston Astros | 37,214 | 2,863 |
| 10 | Texas Rangers | 36,074 | 2,775 |
The Athletics played their final season in Oakland in 2024. Since 2025 they have played home games at Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento, California, pending a planned move to Las Vegas, so their travel figures for later seasons differ from those above.
The Lightest Travel Schedules of 2024
At the other end of the table, geography did most of the work. The five teams with the shortest schedules were all based between the Great Lakes and the Mid-Atlantic, within a few hours’ flight of most of their opponents.
| Rank (fewest miles) | Team | Total miles, 2024 regular season | Gap to league average |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pittsburgh Pirates | 26,411 | 8,541 below |
| 2 | Cincinnati Reds | 27,477 | 7,475 below |
| 3 | St. Louis Cardinals | 27,613 | 7,339 below |
| 4 | Chicago Cubs | 28,007 | 6,945 below |
| 5 | Washington Nationals | 29,118 | 5,834 below |
The spread between top and bottom is the striking number. Seattle’s schedule was 21,030 miles longer than Pittsburgh’s, a gap of almost 80%, from schedules of identical length: 162 games, 81 of them on the road.
Which MLB Teams Have the Longest Road Trips?
Whether it is a three-game series in a neighboring city or a multi-city tour, road trips can be taxing for visiting teams, depending on where they go.
On average, MLB teams covered about 2,700 miles round trip per road trip. Teams based in the Midwest traveled much less. The centrally located St. Louis Cardinals averaged 1,972 miles per road trip, and both the Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox averaged fewer than 2,200.
Seattle’s average of 4,313 miles per trip was more than double the Cardinals’ figure. The Mariners’ problem is isolation: their nearest division rivals are in California and, since 2025, Sacramento, and the rest of the American League West is in Texas.