When two Major League Baseball teams finish the regular season with identical records, they no longer play an extra game to decide who reaches the postseason.
Since MLB expanded the playoffs in 2022, ties involving division championships, Wild Card berths and postseason seeding have been settled using a series of mathematical tiebreakers. The first — and by far the most important — is the head-to-head record between the tied teams. [MLB]
That means a regular-season series in April or May can ultimately decide which team reaches the playoffs in September.
What Is The First MLB Tiebreaker?
The first MLB tiebreaker is head-to-head record.
If two teams finish with identical overall records, MLB looks at their regular-season games against each other.
For example, imagine the Astros and Rangers both finish 90-72.
If Houston won the season series against Texas 7-6, Houston wins the tiebreaker.
Depending on the standings, that could determine:
A division championship
A Wild Card berth
Wild Card seeding
A first-round bye
Home-field advantage
MLB’s official standings even list teams with identical records according to which club currently owns the applicable tiebreaker. [MLB]
What Are The MLB Tiebreakers In Order?
If two teams finish with the same record, MLB uses the following tiebreakers in order:
Head-to-head record
Intradivision record
Intraleague record
Record in the last half of intraleague games
Last-half intraleague record plus one game, working backward until the tie is broken
The process continues only as far as necessary. If the first tiebreaker settles the issue, MLB does not consider the others. [MLB]
What Does Head-To-Head Record Mean?
Head-to-head record simply means which team performed better when the tied clubs played each other during the regular season.
Suppose Team A and Team B finish 91-71.
If Team A went 8-5 against Team B, Team A wins the tiebreaker.
It does not matter whether Team B had a better run differential, scored more runs, finished the season hotter or had a better record against the rest of baseball.
The season series takes priority.
What If The Head-To-Head Record Is Tied?
Then MLB moves to the second tiebreaker: intradivision record.
This means MLB compares how well each team played against opponents in its own division.
For example, if the Yankees and Guardians finished tied for a Wild Card position and also had an even head-to-head record, MLB would compare:
The Yankees’ record against AL East teams
The Guardians’ record against AL Central teams
The team with the better winning percentage in intradivision games wins the tiebreaker.
Importantly, this rule applies even when the two tied teams play in different divisions. [MLB]
What Is The Third MLB Tiebreaker?
If head-to-head and intradivision records are both tied, MLB compares the teams’ intraleague records.
For an American League team, that means games against other American League teams.
For a National League team, it means games against other National League teams.
Interleague games are excluded from this particular comparison.
What Happens If The Intraleague Records Are Also Tied?
MLB then looks at each team’s record during the last half of its intraleague games.
This does not literally mean games played after the All-Star break or the final 81 games of the season.
MLB takes each team’s schedule of games against opponents in its own league and divides those intraleague games into halves. The teams’ records during the latter half are compared. [MLB]
The team with the better winning percentage wins the tiebreaker.
What If The Teams Are Somehow Still Tied?
MLB keeps moving backward through the teams’ intraleague schedules.
The league adds the final game from the first half of each team’s intraleague schedule to the comparison.
If that still produces identical records, MLB adds another earlier intraleague game.
The process continues one game at a time until one team has the better winning percentage.
So mathematically, MLB has a mechanism capable of breaking even an extremely unlikely tie in which the teams have identical head-to-head, divisional, league and second-half league records.
Does MLB Still Have Game 163?
No.
One of the biggest changes to MLB’s postseason system came in 2022, when the league eliminated the traditional tiebreaker game commonly called Game 163.
Before the change, certain ties for a division championship or postseason berth could result in an additional regular-season game.
Those games produced some famous moments in baseball history.
Now the regular season ends after 162 scheduled games, and MLB’s mathematical tiebreaking system determines the postseason field. [MLB]
Why Did MLB Eliminate Game 163?
The expanded postseason made the schedule more complicated.
Six teams from each league now qualify for the playoffs:
Three division champions
Three Wild Card teams
The two division winners with the best records receive first-round byes, while the remaining four teams play in the best-of-three Wild Card Series.
MLB eliminated Game 163 so the postseason could begin promptly after the regular season without creating additional rest days for some clubs while other teams played tiebreaker games. [MLB]
Can A Tiebreaker Decide A Division Championship?
Yes.
Suppose two AL West teams finish with identical 92-70 records.
There is no playoff game to determine the AL West champion.
The team that owns the MLB tiebreaker becomes the division champion.
The other team could still qualify as a Wild Card if its record is good enough.
That distinction can be enormous because division winners receive one of the top three seeds in their league, and the two division winners with the best records receive first-round byes.
Can A Tiebreaker Eliminate A Team From The Playoffs?
Yes.
Imagine two teams finish tied for the final Wild Card spot.
Under the old system, the teams might have played an additional game to decide who advanced.
Under the current system, the tiebreaking formula determines the qualifier.
One team goes to the postseason.
The other team’s season ends.
This makes winning a season series against another playoff contender particularly valuable.
Can Tiebreakers Determine Playoff Seeding?
Yes.
Tiebreakers are not limited to deciding whether a team qualifies.
They are also used when teams have identical records but their exact postseason seeds must be determined. [MLB]
That can determine whether a club:
Receives a first-round bye
Hosts a Wild Card Series
Travels for a Wild Card Series
Receives the No. 1 or No. 2 seed
Receives a higher Wild Card seed
How Does The MLB Playoff Seeding System Work?
Six teams qualify from both the American League and National League.
The seeds are:
No. 1: Division winner with the best record
No. 2: Division winner with the second-best record
No. 3: Division winner with the third-best record
No. 4: Wild Card team with the best record
No. 5: Wild Card team with the second-best record
No. 6: Wild Card team with the third-best record
The No. 1 and No. 2 seeds receive byes directly into the Division Series.
The No. 3 seed hosts the No. 6 seed in a best-of-three Wild Card Series, while No. 4 hosts No. 5. All games in each Wild Card Series are played at the higher seed’s ballpark. [MLB]
Can A Wild Card Team Have A Better Record Than A Division Winner?
Yes.
Winning a division guarantees a team one of the top three seeds in its league.
That means a Wild Card team can finish with a better regular-season record than the third division champion and still receive the No. 4 seed.
The No. 3 division winner would host the No. 6 Wild Card team, while the No. 4 Wild Card would host No. 5.
How Does A Three-Team MLB Tie Work?
Three-team ties are more complicated.
MLB first examines how the three teams performed against one another.
If one club has a better record against both of the other tied clubs, that team receives priority.
If no team has that advantage, MLB compares the combined winning percentages of the clubs in games involving the tied teams. [MLB]
If necessary, MLB then progresses through other criteria such as:
Intradivision winning percentage
Intraleague winning percentage
Last-half intraleague winning percentage
Earlier intraleague games added one at a time
What If All Three Teams Have The Same Record Against Each Other?
If all three clubs have identical records against one another, MLB moves directly to their intradivision winning percentages.
If that does not break the tie, the league moves to intraleague record and then the later portions of the intraleague schedule.
If one team is separated from the group but the other two remain tied, those remaining teams can then be evaluated using the normal two-team tiebreaker procedure. [MLB]
What If Three Teams Tie For A Division And Wild Card?
MLB first uses the multi-team tiebreaking procedure to determine the division champion.
Once the division winner has been identified, the remaining teams are evaluated for the Wild Card position.
If two teams remain tied for the Wild Card, MLB returns to the standard two-team tiebreaker procedure. [MLB]
How Does A Four-Team MLB Tie Work?
Four-team ties are possible, although extremely uncommon.
If four teams are tied for one postseason position, MLB uses the following order:
A team that has a better record against each of the other three tied teams
Best winning percentage in games among the four tied teams
Best intradivision winning percentage
Best intraleague winning percentage
Best record in the last half of intraleague games
Earlier intraleague games added one at a time until the tie is broken
If the process reduces the tie from four teams to two or three, MLB applies the appropriate two-team or three-team rules to the remaining clubs. [MLB]
Does Run Differential Matter In MLB Tiebreakers?
No.
A team’s overall run differential is not part of MLB’s standard postseason tiebreaking sequence.
A team could outscore opponents by 150 runs during the season and still lose a tiebreaker to a team with a much smaller run differential if the other club won their head-to-head season series.
Does Overall Record Against Winning Teams Matter?
Not directly.
MLB does not use a “strength of schedule” or record-against-winning-teams measurement as one of its standard postseason tiebreakers.
The league instead prioritizes head-to-head results, divisional games and games against opponents from the same league.
Does Interleague Record Matter?
Not as a separate tiebreaking category.
Interleague games count toward a team’s overall 162-game record, obviously, but once two teams finish with identical overall records, MLB’s later tiebreakers focus on intradivision and intraleague performance.
That means a team’s record against the opposite league does not become its own postseason tiebreaker.
Why Is Winning The Season Series So Important?
Because teams can effectively secure a postseason advantage months before the standings are settled.
Suppose the Phillies win their season series against the Diamondbacks.
If the clubs later finish tied for the final National League Wild Card berth, Philadelphia would not need to play Arizona again to determine the qualifier.
The season-series victory would settle the tie.
This is why broadcasters often announce late in a series that a team has “clinched the tiebreaker” against another playoff contender.
It means the other team must ultimately finish with a better record, rather than merely an identical record, to finish ahead of it.
What Does “Own The Tiebreaker” Mean?
If a team “owns the tiebreaker,” it means that team would finish ahead of another club if they ended the regular season with identical records.
For example, if Houston owns the tiebreaker over Texas and both teams are 90-71 entering the final day, Texas cannot merely match Houston’s result.
If both win, they remain tied and Houston finishes ahead.
If both lose, they remain tied and Houston finishes ahead.
Texas would need to gain a full game on Houston to move ahead in the standings.
Why Can A Team Be Eliminated Even Though It Is Only One Game Behind?
Tiebreakers can effectively make a one-game deficit larger than it appears.
Imagine Team A is 89-71 and Team B is 88-72 with two games remaining.
If Team A owns the tiebreaker, Team B cannot simply gain one game and finish tied at 90-72 or 89-73.
Team B must finish with a better record.
That is why a team’s elimination number can sometimes reach zero earlier than fans expect from simply looking at the games-back column.
Can MLB Know A Tiebreaker Before The Season Ends?
Yes.
Most two-team tiebreakers are determined long before Game 162 because one team has already clinched the season series.
MLB tracks these scenarios throughout the pennant race, including which contenders have won or lost potential head-to-head tiebreakers. [MLB]
If two teams have finished playing one another and one won the season series, the first tiebreaker is already locked in.
MLB Tiebreakers At A Glance
First tiebreaker: Head-to-head record
Second: Intradivision record
Third: Intraleague record
Fourth: Last-half intraleague record
Fifth: Last-half intraleague record plus earlier games added one at a time
Game 163: Eliminated beginning with the expanded postseason format in 2022
Run differential used? No
Can tiebreakers determine a division champion? Yes
Can they determine a Wild Card berth? Yes
Can they determine playoff seeding? Yes
Can they determine a first-round bye? Yes
Can three- and four-team ties occur? Yes, with additional multi-team procedures
What Is The Simplest Way To Understand MLB Tiebreakers?
For most fans, there is one rule worth remembering above everything else: the season series comes first.
If two teams finish the 162-game schedule with identical records, MLB first asks which club performed better when they played each other.
If one team won the season series, the discussion is over. That team wins the tiebreaker.
Only when the head-to-head record fails to settle the issue does MLB move through division record, league record and increasingly specific portions of the intraleague schedule.
And unlike the old system, there is no dramatic Game 163 waiting at the end. Since 2022, MLB has settled postseason ties mathematically, which means a head-to-head game played months earlier can ultimately decide a division championship, a Wild Card berth or who goes home when the regular season ends. [MLB]
