As easy a choice as it theoretically - two chances to win is better than one - being Club B could mean having to play win-and-get-in games on back-to-back days in Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium. Two bites at the apple and one home game? It's a clear advantage.īecause the Blue Jays hold the regular-season advantage over New York, they would get to choose between Club B and C. The Red Sox clearly would choose to be Club A. The winner advances to the Wild Card Game to face the first winner. The loser goes on the road to face Club C the next day. The winner advances to the Wild Card Game. Club A gets to host the first tiebreaker game against Club B. It could choose to be Club A, Club B or Club C. The team with the best regular-season head-to-head record against each of the others - in this case, Boston - would get what amounts to the No. We will tease out all of the permutations, but for now, here is how a three-teamer among the East teams would work: And there are a bunch of different ways to get there.įour teams can end the season with 90 wins.įour teams can end the season with 91 wins.įour teams can end the season with 92 wins. This may be the most realistic combination of chaos and excitement. Scenario 4: Three-team tie for two wild cardsĪll right, now we're talking. The winner would travel to the top wild-card seed for Tuesday's game. The two teams would play a Game 163 on Monday. Scenario 3: Two-team tie for second wild-card slot The only tie scenario is Boston and Oakland, and because the Red Sox are better in intradivisional games, they win the tiebreaker. The best head-to-head record hosts the game. Scenario 2: Two teams tie atop the wild-card standingsīoring 2.0. The winner would likely face the Rays, who clinch the top seed in the league with one more win or a Houston loss. The team with the better record would host the other on Oct. Scenario 1: Two teams have the two best records with no tiesīoring. Mariners: Believe. They're still alive for the West Division title (though with Houston's magic number at one, we didn't involve them in this exercise).Ī's: Yeah, this probably isn't gonna happen. Red Sox: Flailing after the Yankees rudely interrupted their seven-game winning streak but heartened by facing two bad teams.īlue Jays: Ready to ride the Rogers Centre vibe to their first full-season playoff appearance since 2016. Yankees: Coming off a sweep of the Red Sox, riding a seven-game winning streak and facing the hardest schedule of all contenders. But before we get to any of that, an introduction to your contestants.īlue Jays: 1 vs. Know this: There's about a 1-in-3 chance for an extra game Monday, and there's a 1-in-10 shot at multiple games before the wild card. We'll go from boring to spicy and assign odds to the various scenarios via a simulation from our friends at FiveThirtyEight. Let this serve as your chaos primer on the various scenarios that could play out over the next week. The chances of it happening are infinitesimal, but so were those of the Seattle Mariners still being in the thick of things, and here we are. Same would go for a four-team tie, which is also still alive.Īnd then there's the ultimate madness: five teams, same record, a scenario so wild that MLB's tiebreaker doesn't even account for it. There are multiple very feasible scenarios in which three teams wind up tied for the two American League wild-card slots and set off a chain of events in which baseball has four win-and-you're-in games instead of the typical two. It is chaos season in Major League Baseball. MLB, New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Toronto Blue Jays, Seattle Mariners, Oakland Athletics MLB playoff scenarios: How the five-team race in the AL could play out You have reached a degraded version of because you're using an unsupported version of Internet Explorer.įor a complete experience, please upgrade or use a supported browser
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