Jan 16

Jan 16 How the Major League Baseball Playoff System Works

A Full Guide to the MLB Playoff System

Over the last few years, you may have noticed some changes to the Major League Baseball playoff system. Well, in 2023 more changes are on the horizon. Read a full breakdown of the MLB playoff system.

In this article, we will explain how a Major League Baseball (MLB) team can make the playoffs, the length of each series and what the actual bracket will look like after new changes.

How do MLB teams make the playoffs?

A Major League Baseball team can make the playoffs one of two ways.

They can either win their division or win one of the three Wild Card spots.

The three Wild Card teams are the top three teams with the best record in their league (whether they’re in the American or National League). However, these teams didn’t win their division.

It is possible for multiple teams to win the Wild Card in the same division.

How do Major League Baseball teams get seeded?

While in most major sports leagues it’s simply a matter of who has the best six to eight records in either the East or West, MLB is a completely different story.

The top three seeds of the American and National Leagues are those who won their divisions, while the fourth through sixth seeds are those who made the playoffs via the Wild Card.

If you follow the playoff formats for other United States sports, the important thing to remember is that records don’t matter if you’re comparing a division winner against a Wild Card team.

Why? Because even if someone who made the playoffs via Wild Card with a better record than a team that won their division, the Wild Card team will still get the lower seed.

Once everybody is seeded, there are also a few other differences in the MLB playoff system, compared to previous years.

How do Major League Baseball Wild Card rounds work?

In the first round, the teams with the top two seeds get byes, while the team that wins their division and has the worst record has to play in the first round among the Wild Card teams.

The third and sixth seeds play against each other in the first round, and the fourth and fifth seeded teams do the same.

Just like any other professional sports series, the higher seed will be the team that has home field advantage.

The series itself is scored as best of two out of three.

How does the Major League Baseball Divisional Series work?

The top seed plays the winner of the four versus five series, while the number two seed plays in the 3-6 series in the second round of the playoffs.

Just like it has always been, the Divisional Series is a best of five series in the 2-2-1 format.

This means that the team with home field advantage plays the first two games at home and also the fifth game, if necessary, while the lower seeded team plays games three and four at their home field.

How does the Major League Baseball League Championship Series work?

For the top two seeds, this is technically only their second round.

The teams that participate in this stage of the playoffs are either one of the top two division winners, or the team that beats one of those two winners.

This is considered the “semifinals” of MLB.

This series is a best of seven and it will contain the 2-3-2 format.

The team that wins this series wins the pennant for their respective league, depending on whether or not they are in the American or National League.

The team is also given a bid as one of two teams to make the World Series.

How does a Major League Baseball team make the World Series?

The two teams that make the World Series can’t lose any of the other series games before this one.

The format for home field advantage is the same, and it is also a best of seven.

Does the MLB playoff system work?

The obvious argument against this format is that it doesn't bode well for teams with competitive divisions.

Let’s use the records from 2022 as an example. In the AL, four out of the five teams finished above .500 (the Red Sox finished last at 78-84) and three teams in the division finished above .500.

Out of the bottom three teams in the AL, East ended up making the Wild Card record.

This was Toronto, who finished with 92-70, which was actually the same record as the Cleveland Indians, who won their division and naturally got a higher seed.

Tampa Bay garnered an 86-76 season and the Mariners also had the same record as the Blue Jays and Indians.

In this scenario, only the Mariners-Blue Jays tiebreaker would matter, due to the fact that the Indians actually won their division. This only reinforces the fact that playing in a weaker division has benefits.

The National League East was even more outrageous, as the top two teams (the Braves and the Mets) tied for first at 101 games.

This was the second best record in all of Major League Baseball, behind the Dodgers who finished first with 111.

This means the loser of the tiebreaker would actually have to play in the Wild Card round.

In this scenario, the Cardinals, who were the winner of the Central, only had to win 93 games to win their division, and therefore they had to play among the Wild Card teams.

So, what if the Dodgers had won fewer than 100 games last year?

If that had happened, it would have created a lot of inequities when it comes to teams with strong divisions making the playoffs.