More Like Team Un-Tropy, Right?

In the Beforetimes, mid-September brought my annual check-in on the potential for end-of-season chaos in the playoff races via the Team Entropy series. With last year’s introduction of an expanded and restructured postseason, however, Major League Baseball did away with the potential for scheduling mayhem in favor of a larger inventory of playoff games. Along with the expansion of the playoff field from 10 teams to 12 and of the Wild Card round from a pair of winner-take-all games to a quartet of three-game series, MLB also eliminated all winner-take-all regular-season tiebreaker games. In the name of efficiency, we have no more Games 163 and no more potential Bucky Dents. Instead, ties, even for spots where the winner would receive a postseason berth and the loser would go home, are decided by mathematics. It’s enough to make a fan want to shout, “Hey, Manfred, pull your head out of a spreadsheet and watch an elimination game!”

The untangling of the often-chaotic scenarios by which those one-game tiebreakers could come about was Team Entropy’s raison d’etre. But particularly with so many close races, there’s still enough untangling to do in potentially complex tie scenarios that I’ve chosen to continue a version of this exercise, pouring out a cold one for what might have been. If what we’re left with isn’t exactly chaotic, you can thumb your nose at the commissioner as you take a seat on the Team Un-Tropy bandwagon.

With the changes introduced last year, each league’s playoff field now consists of six teams: all three division winners plus three Wild Cards with the best records from among the remaining teams. The top two division winners by record get first-round byes; the third division winner (no. 3 seed) plays host for all three games against the third-best Wild Card team (no. 6 seed); and the top Wild Card team (no. 4 seed) hosts all three games against the second-best Wild Card team (no. 5 seed).

There’s no re-seeding after that round; the 3/6 Wild Card winner plays the no. 2 seed, and the 4/5 winner plays the no. 1 seed. This leaves open the possibility of a Wild Card contender facing a competitive quandary as it heads into the final weeks of the season: Try to set things up so as to face the weakest of the three division winners as the sixth seed and then — if you advance — the second seed, rather than going for broke and trying to get the fourth seed and home-field advantage for the Wild Card series, only to advance and face the no. 1 seed in the Division Series. If you’re the Cubs (or the Marlins, or any other Wild Card-chasing NL team), wouldn’t you rather wind up sixth and face the NL Central-winning Brewers (no. 3) and then the Dodgers and their decimated rotation (no. 2) instead of finishing fourth, then playing the fifth Wild Card team for the right to face the top-seeded Braves? Leaving open the potential for such shenanigans is just one way MLB got this wrong, but I digress…

As noted, whether it’s teams jockeying for seeding or merely to make the cut for the postseason, in the event that two or more teams finish with the same record, everything will be decided on paper (or pixel) rather than via more games. Like the five stages of grief, MLB has five stages of breaking the ties:

1. Head-to-head records. This is self-explanatory when it comes to two-team tiebreakers, and if they played an odd number of games against each other, which is currently the case if they’re in the same division (the number was reduced from 19 to 13 with the new balanced schedule), then no other steps will be necessary. If three teams are involved, and one team has a winning record against both of the others, they’re the top seed and the other two teams follow two-team tiebreaker rules to determine the pecking order. If none of the three has winning records against the two others, then the team with the best combined winning percentage against the other teams in the tie wins the tiebreaker, and, if it’s still relevant, the remaining two teams are un-tied via head-to-head records and on down the line.
2. Intradivision records. This one is relevant only for two situations: multi-team scenarios where the teams all have the same head-to-head records within the group, or for two Wild Card teams in different divisions; in the latter case, there’s still a good chance they played seven games against each other instead of six.
3. Interdivision records, meaning records against the other two divisions in the same league. If there’s a tie between an AL East team and an AL West team, both of whom had the same intradivision records, this would pit the AL East team’s record against AL Central and AL West teams versus the AL West team’s record against AL Central and AL East teams.
4. Second-half of intraleague games. If a team has 46 interleague games, then this would be decided based on their winning percentage over the last 58 (half of 116) games against teams in their own league. And if that doesn’t work…
5. Second-half of intraleague games plus one… or more, as needed… Under the above scenario, then this would be decided based on their winning percentage over the last 59 intraleague games, then 60, 61, 62… as many as it takes.

It’s rare that any tie gets that far, even in this theoretical exercise, as you’ll see once we work through the relevant examples.

In the American League, five teams are fighting for four remaining spots, with the Orioles and Rays each having clinched playoff berths on Sunday. Both the AL East and AL West are still up for grabs, with the Orioles (93–56) and Rays (92–59) just two games apart in the former and the Astros (84–66), Rangers (82–67), and Mariners (81–68) separated by 2.5 games, top to bottom, in the latter. The Blue Jays (83–67) are also in the Wild Card mix, half a game ahead of the Rangers, leaving the Mariners on the outside looking in at the moment.

For the AL East, the Orioles’ 8–0 win over the Rays on Saturday behind Grayson Rodriguez’s eight shutout innings clinched the season series between the two teams, and Sunday’s ensuing 5–4 win gave them an 8–5 season series advantage. Thus, if the two teams finish with identical records, the division title, the league’s top seeding, and a first-round bye all go to the O’s. Meanwhile, given the nine-game gap between the Rays and Rangers, the runner-up in the AL East is on track to be the league’s fourth seed, giving them home-field advantage in the Wild Card series against the fifth seed. For the AL West, given how much better all three contenders are than the Twins (79–71), a first-round bye as the no. 2 seed is likely at stake for the winner.

In unknotting the ties, the first thing to know is the teams’ head-to-head records against each other in case of two-way ties. I’ve done this all up in a grid for easy reference:

The Astros not only clinched the season series the Rangers but also annihilated them in their September 4–6 series in Arlington, sweeping the three games by a combined score of 39–10 to secure a 9–4 season series advantage. However, they’re just 2–8 against the Mariners with three games to play in Seattle on September 25–27. Seattle is just 1–5 against Texas, but with seven games still to play (three in Texas on September 22–24 and then four in Seattle from September 28 to October 1), that season series hangs in the balance.

If the Mariners rally to win that season series against the Rangers, by owning both series advantages, they would hold the three-team tiebreaker in the event all three finish with the same record; they would thus be the AL West champions, with the Astros owning the tiebreaker over the Rangers. If the Mariners don’t win the season series against the Rangers and the three teams wind up tied, they would be ranked by combined winning percentage against the other two; that would place the Mariners (9–7, .562) ahead of the Astros (11–12, .478) and Rangers (9–10, .474), though as noted, the teams have games remaining that could change the order.

If somehow all three teams finish 13–13 against one another — which could happen if the Astros take two of three from the Mariners and then the Rangers take four of seven from them — the teams would be ranked in terms of intradivision winning percentage. As you can see from the table, right now, the Mariners have the upper hand at .667, followed by the Astros at .612 and then the Rangers at .548. If the teams somehow do wind up 13–13 against each other and tied with the same intradivision records after it’s all said and done, the Rangers (.617) would have the clear upper hand in terms of interdivision records, with the Mariners (.516) and Astros (.500) in the distance behind them.

As for the Blue Jays, they’re just half a game ahead of the Rangers and a full game ahead of the Mariners. They don’t have any games remaining against the AL West teams; they’re 4–3 against the Astros, 3–3 against the Mariners, and 1–6 against the Rangers. If they end up in a four-way tie with the three AL West teams, the division winner would be determined first as noted above in the three-way tie scenario. Then the three-way tie involving the two runners-up and the Blue Jays would be untangled using combined head-to-head records as follows:

If the Astros win the AL West: Rangers (11-2, .846), Mariners (4-8, .333), Blue Jays (4-9, .308)
If the Mariners win the AL West: Astros (12-8, .600), Rangers (10-10, .500), Blue Jays (5-9, .357)
If the Rangers win the AL West: Mariners (11-5, .688) Blue Jays (7-6, .538), Astros (5-13, .278)

The Blue Jays wouldn’t get the upper hand in any of those scenarios, but once the tiebreaker is whittled down to two teams, they do have the advantage over the Astros, in the event they’re in the pool. If they have to go further into tiebreaker territory against the Mariners (with whom they split the season series), the Jays have just a 15–25 intradivision record compared to the Mariners’ 26–13. Long story short, the Blue Jays probably can’t afford to wind up in a complicated tiebreaker.

As for the NL, the Braves and Dodgers have clinched their respective divisions already. The Brewers currently own a 6.5-game lead on the Cubs and seven-game lead on the Reds. They’re 5–5 against the former with three still to play in Milwaukee from September 29 to October 1, and 10–3 against the latter. I don’t think we’re going to have to worry about ties in that one; our odds for the Cubs winning the division are 1.2%. The real excitement is with regards to the Wild Card race, where six teams are fighting for three spots, with five of them — the Cubs, Marlins, Diamonbacks, Reds, and Giants — separated by just 2.5 games top to bottom. Let’s go straight to the big board:

For as exciting as it may be to have six teams jockeying for position, in terms of head-to-head action, the schedule offers just two games remaining between them: a pair between the Giants and Diamondbacks in Arizona on Tuesday and Wednesday. After that, it’s all scoreboard watching, which seems suboptimal.

Anyway, there are too many permutations to work through every single one, but we’ll try a few. Suppose for example that the Phillies claim a spot, the Giants fade out of the picture, and the other four teams wind up tied for two spots. In that case, the Marlins (11–7, .611) would have the advantage over the Reds (14–12, .538), Diamondbacks (10–9, .526) and Cubs (9–16, .360) in terms of head-to-head records and would get one Wild Card spot. Instead of continuing with that pecking order, however, or re-ranking among the three teams, the other three teams would be re-ranked as follows: Diamondbacks (8–5, .615), Reds (11–9, .550), Cubs (7–12, .368). Arizona would get the other Wild Card spot, and Chicago and Cincinnati would go pound sand, because The Man(fred) doesn’t want anyone to have fun playing out this little scenario., the Reds would claim the next tiebreaker because they have winning records against both the Diamondbacks and Cubs.

Moving on to other scenarios: suppose that the Cubs, who were swept by the Diamondbacks this weekend and among these teams have a winning record only against the Giants, avoid the tiebreaker heartbreak and claim the second Wild Card spot outright. That would leave the Marlins, Diamondbacks, Reds, and Giants tied for one spot, in which case Miami (10–8, .556) would make the playoffs unless San Francisco wins both its remaining games against Arizona, pushing the Giants from 13–11 (.542) to 15–11 (.577) and leaving Cincinnati (10–10, .500) and Ariona (10–14, .417) just bystanders in that one. With only one spot at stake, there’s no need to re-rank after eliminating the top team.

Another one? Suppose instead it’s the Diamondbacks claiming the second spot, leaving the Marlins, Cubs, Reds and Giants tied. Again the Marlins (10–8, .556) come out on top, ahead of the Cubs (13–12, .520), Reds (13–13, .500), and Giants (8–11, .421). If we start with the Marlins having clinched a spot along with the Phillies, leaving the other four teams, it’s the Diamondbacks (13–11, .542) leading the Reds (14–13, .519), Cubs (12–13, .480), and Giants (11–13, .458) but needing to win at least one of those two remaining games with the Giants.

Since we do have a few split season series involving the Reds, Giants, and Marlins, it’s worth checking out the intradivision column. The Marlins (24–22, .522) would beat the Reds (19–27, .413) in a two-team tiebreaker based on play to date, though each team will have played 52 intradivision games when it’s all said and done. Currently, the Giants (22–17, .564) have the edge on the Marlins but also more baseball to play within the division.

With two weeks to go, there’s still enough to make us dizzy with permutations if not on-field action. If there’s enough to sort out next week, I’ll be back with a dispatch from Team Un-Tropy headquarters.