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We've just a handful of days remaining in the 2018 Major League Baseball regular season, but we've still got much to sort out in terms of the playoff picture. That's especially the case in the beautifully muddled National League.
But what if the 162-game sprawl of the regular season isn't enough to provide us with the necessary clarity? That's when we'll turn to the various and sundry (and somewhat complicated) tiebreaker scenarios. Speaking of which, we're here to provide you with a brief walking tour of those tiebreakers. Let's jump in ...
What if two teams wind up tied for a division title?
This is an entirely plausible scenario in the NL West and the NL Central right now. By way of example, let's say the Rockies and Dodgerswind up with identical records after 162 games. In that case, the two teams would play a one-game tiebreaker on Monday, Oct. 1. Since the Dodgers won the season series, they'd host the Rockies. The winner of the tiebreaker game would advance to the NLDS, while the loser would revert back to their 162-game record for purposes of determining the wild cards.
That means if the losing team in the divisional tiebreaker reverts to wild-card status, then they play the Wild Card Game. If they revert to a tie for the second and final wild-card spot, then they play another tiebreaker to determine who advances to the Wild Card Game. If we have a tie for a division title and a concurrent three-way tie for the wild-card spots, then it's a little different. In that case, the division title tiebreaker would be played, as would a wild-card tiebreaker between the two wild-card contenders from outside the tied division in question. The losers of those two games would then play a second tiebreaker to determine who played the winner of the initial wild-card tiebreaker in the Wild Card Game.
What if three teams wind up tied for a division title?
This isn't at all likely, but it's still possible that in the NL Central the Cubs, Brewers, and Cardinals all wind up with 91 wins and thus in a three-team bottleneck atop the standings. If that's the case, then the three teams would be assigned "A," "B" and "C" designations.
The team with the best intra-divisional record gets to choose its designation from the three listed above. The team with the next best intra-divisional record picks from the remaining two, and the team that holds up the rear in terms of 2018 record against teams from within its division gets the letter that's left over. (If any of those records are the same, then you go to intra-divisional records in the second half. If those records are the same, then we go to the results of each team's most recent intra-league but not intra-divisional game.)
Anyhow, then we go to a mini-tournament format among Teams A, B and C. Team A would host Team B. Team C would then visit the winner of the A-B game to determine the division title.
And what if the three teams tied for the division are also tied for one wild-card spot with a team from outside the division? In that case, you'd have a Team D -- the team from outside the division. They'd visit Team C and, if they won, claim a wild-card berth, and the winner of the usual Team A-Team B game would win the division. If Team C won, then they'd advance to play for the division title with the wild-card berth as a fallback. Team D and the loser of the Team A-Team B game would then call it a year.
What about wild-card ties?
Some of those scenarios are laid out above, but let's break down some wild-card specific situations:
- Two teams tie for one wild card: Very straightforward. One-game tiebreaker.
- Three teams tie for one wild card: Teams A, B and C are assigned as noted above and they play as noted above -- i.e. B at A, followed by the winner of A-B at home against C with the bid at stake.
- Three teams tie for both wild cards: Game 1: Team B at Team A, winner gets wild card; Game 2: Team C at loser of Game 1, winner gets remaining wild card.
And what about Maximum Chaos?
At this writing, it's possible for the Cubs, Dodgers, Brewers, Rockies, and Cardinals to all finish with 91-71 records. This, obviously, would occasion madness. Basically, you'd sort out out the NL West according to the two-team divisional tiebreaker noted above and the NL Central by means of the three-team tiebreaker. Then you'd have the NL West runner-up and the two NL Central runners-up sorting out a three-team tie for both wild-card spots. The challenge, of course, is getting all that sorted out between the end of the regular season on Sept. 30 and the scheduled NL Wild Card Game on Oct. 2. The LDS round isn't scheduled to begin until Oct. 4, so there is a bit of leeway provided MLB is willing to be flexible with the wild-card rounds.
So, yeah, let's hope for madness.
https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/2018 ... es-heat-up
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GO BEARS!!!
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