Mayhem finds a home at the end of MLB’s regular season, nestling nicely between harrowing home runs and curveballs that frolic as they evade bats.
The league expanded its postseason to 12 teams in 2022, making the final few games of a season that much more consequential.
That brought some other changes, too. Gone are the days of Game 163, a final-day tiebreaker that saw two postseason-caliber teams collide to determine which club won a division crown or snatched a wild-card spot.
In its place are myriad tiebreakers, each designed to ensure that the team granted access to the postseason is a deserving one by even the most granular measures.
The New York Mets, Cincinnati Reds and Arizona Diamondbacks are the latest teams to see their playoff fates tethered to MLB’s tiebreaking rules. Here’s what you need to know about MLB’s divisional and wild-card tiebreakers.
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MLB division tiebreakers
If two teams are locked atop a division, here's how the victor is determined:
- Head-to-head record
- Record within the division
- Record against league (AL for AL teams, NL for NL teams)
- Record against league in second half of season
- Record against league in second half of season, plus one
Most divisional ties are broken by head-to-head record. If that is even, the tiebreaker moves to each team’s record against all divisional opponents.
If the tie remains, the next tiebreaker is each team’s record against the rest of the league (AL for American League teams, NL for National League teams). If that mark is also equal, record against the rest of the league over the final 81 games is considered. If all else fails and that record is still deadlocked, each game from the first half of the season is considered, one by one, until the tie is broken.
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Things get more complicated when three teams are jostling for divisional supremacy. If their records are equal, the team with a winning record against the other two is awarded the division crown. If Team A and Team B have the same record against each other but both won their season series against Team C, Team C is knocked out while Teams A and B go through the tiebreaking procedures outlined above.
What happens if all three teams hold identical records against one another? The next tiebreaker is record against the entire division, with the previous head-to-head tiebreaking procedures applied until the tie is resolved.
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MLB wild-card tiebreakers
Fortunately, MLB's wild-card tiebreakers are identical to that of the divisional race.
As a reminder, here's how the leader would be determined in a two-team tie for a wild-card spot:
- Head-to-head record
- Record within the division
- Record against league (AL for AL teams, NL for NL teams)
- Record against league in second half of season
- Record against league in second half of season, plus one
The Mets, Reds and Diamondbacks all find themselves in a tight race for the final wild-card spot in the National League. Following the tiebreaking guidelines, a three-team tie would see Cincinnati punch its ticket to the postseason, as Terry Francona’s club posted better head-to-head records against New York and Arizona.
If the Mets and Diamondbacks finish with identical records that are better than the Reds’ mark, divisional record would be used to determine the final NL wild-card participant. Arizona entered its final series of the season with a 26-23 record in NL West play, 1½ games better than New York’s 24-25 mark. Both teams play divisional rivals in their final series: the Diamondbacks face the Padres, while the Mets take on the Marlins.