Best Time to Buy MLB Tickets: What 456 Games of Price Data Say

Check today’s get-in price and price history for every MLB game on TicketScanner’s MLB page.

How TicketScanner measured it

TicketScanner records the get-in price, meaning the cheapest available listing before fees, for every tracked MLB game once a day across the major resale marketplaces it monitors. This article uses the 456 games that were played between May 22 and Aug. 25, 2026, so every game in the sample has a complete price history from first tracking through game day.

Each daily get-in price was grouped by how many days remained before first pitch. The tables report the median in each window plus the 25th and 75th percentiles (the interquartile range). Medians are used because one $400 listing for a rivalry game would drag an average up without saying anything about a normal Tuesday.

The “games in sample” column changes by window because some games entered tracking fewer than 60 days out and game-day snapshots were not captured for every game. All prices are secondary-market get-ins, not face value.

Do MLB tickets get cheaper closer to the game?

Yes, but only up to a point, and that point arrives earlier than most fans assume.

Source: TicketScanner daily price tracking, 456 completed MLB games, May 22 to Aug. 25, 2026. Get-in is the cheapest listed ticket per game across tracked marketplaces, before fees.

The shape is a step, not a slide. The median sat at $29 from the start of tracking through 31 days out, slipped to $27 in the 15-30 day window, then dropped to $24 once the game was inside two weeks. From there it was flat: $24 at 8-14 days, 4-7 days, 1-3 days and on game day itself.

The percentiles tell the same story. The 75th percentile, roughly a pricier-than-usual game, fell from $45 to $38 over the same stretch and then held. The 25th percentile dipped from $16 to $15 inside the final week, a one-dollar move that is real but not worth planning around.

So the answer to “when do MLB tickets get cheaper” is: between 30 and 14 days out. The cheapest time to buy in this sample was any point inside two weeks, with no measurable reward for pushing it to the morning of the game.

Why the floor arrives two weeks out

Resale mechanics make the step easy to read. Beyond 60 days, listings come mostly from season-ticket holders and brokers pricing off last year’s demand, and nobody is in a hurry. Inside a month, sellers start competing on price to move seats before the game starts and the ticket becomes worthless. By two weeks out the cheapest sellers have found the floor, and the last few days are mostly the same tickets relisted at the same price. The small final-week dip in the 25th percentile comes from the few games where sellers were stuck with unsold seats.

Cheapest day of the week for baseball tickets

Which day the game falls on moved the price more than how early you bought. The table uses the same 456 games, with each get-in taken within three days of first pitch.

Source: TicketScanner daily price tracking, May 22 to Aug. 25, 2026, price within three days of the game. Wednesday is omitted because only five games fell on that day, too few for a reliable median. Thursday and Sunday counts are small enough to treat as directional.

Friday and Saturday games cost 50% to 75% more than Tuesday games in the same tracking window. Monday, at $20, was the second-cheapest day and had a much larger sample (122 games) than Tuesday, which makes Monday the safer generalization.

A fan with a flexible calendar saves more by picking a Monday or Tuesday game than by timing a Saturday purchase perfectly. A $29 Saturday ticket bought at the two-week floor still costs more than a $17 Tuesday ticket bought at any time.

When the pattern breaks

The $24 floor describes the typical game. A meaningful share of the schedule is not typical, and for those games “wait until two weeks out” turns from advice into a gamble.

Rivalry series and team-designated premium games

Teams price these games higher at face value and resellers follow. The Yankees, for example, classify all 2026 home games against the Red Sox, Dodgers, Braves and Mets as Premium Games, along with Opening Day, Old-Timers’ Day and select June 20 and July 4 dates, and note that single-game prices are subject to dynamic pricing. On the day before the April 21-23, 2026, Red Sox-Yankees series at Fenway Park, the cheapest listings on StubHub were $55, $58 and $69 for the three games, more than double the $24 median in TicketScanner’s sample, with top listings above $2,000.

Giveaway and bobblehead nights

Promotions attract buyers who want the item as much as the game, which keeps resale prices from drifting down. TickPick’s 2026 bobblehead report counted 179 bobblehead giveaways across MLB with an average get-in price of $37, up from $32 in 2025, and the Yoshinobu Yamamoto bobblehead game at Dodger Stadium on March 31 carried a $151 get-in. Gametime’s analysis of resale transactions on its platform and wider marketplace data found bobblehead games in 2025 averaged 22% higher prices than comparable non-promotional games, up from an 11% premium in 2024. If the promotion is why you want to go, treat the ticket as a promotional event, not a typical Tuesday game.

A star pitcher on the mound

A starting-pitcher announcement can reprice a game overnight, inside the window where prices are normally flat. When the Dodgers announced Shohei Ohtani would return to pitching against the Padres on June 16, 2025, the average listed price on Vivid Seats jumped from $129 to $294, according to ESPN. In Pittsburgh, Paul Skenes’ first six home starts in 2024 drew an average of 28,969 fans against a 21,078 home average at PNC Park at the time, per Pittsburgh Baseball Now. Rotation news lands days out, so a buyer waiting for the floor can get caught by it.

September playoff races

TicketScanner’s 456-game window closed Aug. 25, so it does not capture the final month. The 2026 regular season ends Sept. 27 and the postseason opens Sept. 29, per Ticketmaster, and late-September home games for a contender carry playoff-adjacent demand with fewer casual sellers. Assume the two-week drop is smaller or absent for those games. TicketScanner will publish September numbers once the season is complete.

The risk of waiting

Even for an ordinary game, waiting has a cost the median does not show. The get-in price is the cheapest seat in the building, and as game day approaches that seat tends to be a single in the upper deck or an obstructed corner, since pairs and lower-level seats usually sell through first. Two people who want to sit together at four days out may see a $24 get-in while the cheapest pair sits near the 75th percentile.

Sellouts are the other risk. TickPick’s game-day pricing guide makes the point from a marketplace’s side: baseball rewards same-day buyers more than other sports, but when inventory runs low sellers raise prices rather than cut them, and a fan who waits too long “could miss out altogether or pay more.”

The price floor arrives at 14 days. Everything after that trades seat choice for no additional savings, which is why two weeks out is the sensible default rather than the morning of the game.

How to set a target price with a tracker

The curve gives you a benchmark. A price tracker turns it into a decision rule for one game.

Open the game on TicketScanner and look at its price history. If the game is more than 30 days out and the get-in is near the top of its range, that is normal; note the current price as your ceiling. Set a target of about 15% to 20% below that, which mirrors what the 456-game sample did on its own. For a Friday or Saturday game, expect the same percentage drop from a higher starting point, not a drop to weekday levels.

Then watch the two-week mark. If the get-in has hit your target by 14 days out, buy, because the data says it will not go lower. If it has not moved at all, look for a reason: a promotion, a probable pitcher, a rival, a pennant race. If one exists, the game is not going to follow the curve. If none does, a few more days rarely hurt, though the seat-quality cost above applies.

Compare marketplaces before checking out. The get-in for the same game differs by site because listings and fee structures differ, and TicketScanner shows each tracked site side by side so you can see which one holds the floor that day.

The same tracker logic applies to shows with different timing; see our guide to the best time to buy concert tickets. If the game you want is not on sale yet, see when MLB tickets go on sale.

What other outlets say, and where the data disagrees

The most widely repeated figures on this topic come from a FinanceBuzz analysis of 2.2 million StubHub sales from April through June 2023, which reported an average price of $103 at 90 days out, $74 one week out and $55 on game day, a 26% drop in the final week alone. The Ticket Blog repeats that framing, advising fans to wait 5 to 7 days for ordinary games and to buy immediately for Opening Day, playoffs and rivalry matchups. TickPick recommends same-day or day-before purchases for baseball.

TicketScanner’s data agrees on direction and disagrees on timing. Prices do fall as the game approaches, but in the 2026 sample the drop was finished by 14 days out and the final week was flat at a $24 median. Method likely explains the gap: FinanceBuzz measured average sale prices across all seats, which fall as expensive seats stop trading, while TicketScanner measures the cheapest available listing, which is what a budget buyer pays. Averages are also pulled around by premium games in ways medians are not.

On day of week the sources broadly agree. FinanceBuzz found Saturday ($91 average) and Friday ($89) most expensive and Wednesday cheapest at $65; TicketScanner’s medians also put Friday and Saturday on top, with Tuesday and Monday cheapest and Wednesday unranked because only five games fell on that day.

For a fan buying the cheapest seat, the safer rule is the one the 2026 data supports: pick a Monday or Tuesday game and buy at roughly two weeks out unless something about the game says otherwise.

FAQ

When is the cheapest time to buy MLB tickets?

About two weeks before the game. In TicketScanner’s tracking of 456 MLB games from May 22 to Aug. 25, 2026, the median get-in price fell from $29 at 31-60 days out to $24 at 8-14 days out and then stayed at $24 through game day. Buying inside the two-week window captured the full drop.

Do MLB tickets get cheaper closer to the game?

They get cheaper up to the two-week mark, then stop. The median get-in was $24 at 8-14 days, 4-7 days, 1-3 days and on game day in the same sample. The 25th percentile slipped from $16 to $15 in the final week, which is the only measurable late movement.

When do MLB tickets get cheaper for rivalry games or giveaway nights?

Often they do not. Yankees home games against the Red Sox, Dodgers, Braves and Mets are designated Premium Games with dynamic pricing, and bobblehead games averaged 22% more than comparable non-promotional games in 2025, per Gametime. For those games, buy when the price is acceptable rather than waiting for a drop that may not come.

What is the cheapest day of the week for baseball tickets?

Tuesday, with a $17 median get-in, followed by Monday at $20, in TicketScanner’s May 22 to Aug. 25, 2026, sample. Friday ($29) and Saturday ($30) were the most expensive. Wednesday had only five games in the sample and is not ranked.

When to buy MLB tickets if I need specific seats or seats together?

Earlier than the price floor. The get-in price at two weeks out is usually a single seat, and pairs or lower-level seats sell through first. If seat location matters more than the last few dollars, buy in the 15-30 day window, when the median had already dropped to $27 and inventory was still broad.

Track the get-in price for any MLB game and buy when it hits your target on TicketScanner’s MLB page.

Sources

• https://financebuzz.com/best-time-to-buy-mlb-tickets (FinanceBuzz analysis of 2.2 million StubHub MLB sales, April to June 2023: $103 at 90 days, $74 one week out, $55 game day; Saturday $91, Friday $89, Wednesday $65)
• https://www.theticketblog.com/post/when-to-buy-mlb-tickets (advice to wait 5 to 7 days for ordinary games and buy immediately for Opening Day, playoffs and rivalry games)
• https://www.tickpick.com/blog/do-ticket-prices-drop-the-day-of-the-game/ (TickPick guidance on same-day baseball buying, low-inventory price increases and the risk of missing out)
• https://www.mlb.com/yankees/tickets/single-game-tickets (Yankees 2026 Premium Games list and dynamic pricing statement)
• https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/red-sox-vs-yankees-2026-172431359.html (StubHub get-in prices of $55, $58 and $69 for the April 21-23, 2026, Red Sox-Yankees series at Fenway Park, published April 20, 2026)
• https://www.tickpick.com/blog/the-cost-of-mlb-bobbleheads-tickpicks-bobblehead-report/ (179 bobblehead giveaways in 2026, $37 average get-in vs $32 in 2025, $151 Yamamoto bobblehead game on March 31)
• https://gametime.co/blog/dodgers-bobblehead-schedule-2026-ticket-prices/ (bobblehead games averaged 22% higher prices than comparable non-promotional games in 2025, up from 11% in 2024)
• https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/45525702/los-angeles-dodgers-shohei-ohtani-returning-pitch-ticket-prices (Ohtani June 16, 2025, pitching return vs Padres: average listed price $129 to $294, Vivid Seats data)
• https://pittsburghbaseballnow.com/paul-skenes-pittsburgh-pirates-attendance/ (Skenes’ six 2024 PNC Park starts averaged 28,969 fans vs 21,078 Pirates home average)
• https://blog.ticketmaster.com/mlb-faqs/ (2026 regular season ends Sept. 27, postseason begins Sept. 29)