As part of the new collective bargaining agreement between Major League Baseball and the players association, MLB postseason play has officially been expanded to 12 teams effective this season.
Per the new postseason format, the No. 1 seed in each league will go to the team with the best overall record, with the No. 2 seed being the team with the second-best record among division winners. Those top-two teams in each league will receive a bye in the first round, advancing them automatically to the second round of playoffs. There will be no “ghost-win” as was discussed as a potential early-on in the bargaining discussions.
The No. 3 seed in each league will go to the teams with the third-best division winner record, with the number four through six teams going to the teams with the three-best records among non-division winners, in order of their record.
Another big difference with the way the 2022 postseason will be formatted is there will be no game 163 tie-break game or single-wild card game.
Instead of the game 163 tiebreak game, there will be a number of tie-break scenarios in place that would seed teams, like record, intra-league games, head-to-head records, etc. The final details of the tie-break equations have yet to be announced and are still to be determined, but we do know for sure now that there will be no game 163.
The single-elimination wild card game will now also be replaced with a best-of-three series.
We also know now that there will be no re-seeding for the divisional series. The number one seed will player the winner of the game between number four and number five. The number two seed will play the winner of the number three verses number six game. It will be bracket-style.
With the expansion of playoffs, some sources believe this could provide MLB the opportunity to market and promote the playoffs in a bracket-format similar to NCAA’s March Madness.
The new postseason format will go into effect for the 2022 MLB season.
