Trying to Solve the MLB Playoff Seeding Problem

Imagine winning more games than nearly every team in your league, only to face a tougher road to the World Series because of the division you play in. Every fall, twelve Major League Baseball (MLB) teams compete in a postseason tournament to determine the league’s champion. However, before a team can reach the World Series, it must navigate a playoff bracket shaped by its regular-season performance and divisional standing.

The path to the World Series, the championship of MLB, follows a set playoff structure. The MLB consists of two leagues, the American League (AL) and the National League (NL), each containing 15 teams divided among the East, Central, and West divisions. Each league has six playoff spots. There are three division winners, seeded first through third according to their regular-season records, and three Wild Card teams, which are the teams with the best remaining records in their league. The top two seeds in each league receive a bye, allowing them to skip the Wild Card Series and advance directly to the Division Series. In the Wild Card round, the fourth seed faces the fifth seed, while the third seed faces the sixth seed. The winners advance to the Division Series, where the winner of the fourth-versus-fifth matchup faces the top seed, while the winner of the third-versus-sixth matchup faces the second seed. The division series, or ALDS and NLDS, are best-of-five series. Their winners advance to the American League Championship Series (ALCS) and National League Championship Series (NLCS), which determine who advances to the World Series. From there, they play in yet another best-of-seven series to compete for the MLB championship. 

These are the playoff seeds for the AL during this season, along with their regular season records:

1. Tampa Bays Rays (98-64)
2. Cleveland Guardians (85-77)
3. Houston Astros (81-81)
4. New York Yankees (93-68)
5. Boston Red Sox (87-75)
6. Chicago White Sox (84-78)

At first glance, the standings seem straightforward. However, the Yankees and Red Sox have better records than both the Guardians and Astros, but they are seeded behind the two teams. This is because all three teams that qualify as division winners are guaranteed the top three seeds. The Rays, Yankees, and Red Sox all play in the AL East, meaning that only Tampa Bay receives a top-three seed, while New York and Boston must compete in the Wild Card Series despite having two of the league’s three best regular season records.

This creates a significant disadvantage for the Yankees and Red Sox. The two teams must face each other in the Wild Card Series, meaning one of the three best teams by record in the AL will be eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. The winner would subsequently face Tampa Bay, the league’s top seed, in the division series. The broader issue is that the current format prioritizes winning a division over achieving a strong regular season record. Guaranteeing division winners the top three seeds can produce an uneven bracket. One side of the AL bracket has the AL East teams with the three best records, while the other side has three teams who vary between records of 81-81 and 85-77. Houston’s record of 81-81 was the worst record for a division winner in MLB history, and they still got to host a playoff series. The result of this current playoff format is a system in which a team’s division can matter more to its playoff position than its performance during the regular season.

Two changes in playoff formatting could address this problem. The first is to introduce reseeding after the Wild Card Series, matching the highest remaining seed against the lowest remaining seed in each subsequent round. For example, if the sixth seed was to win their matchup in the Wild Card, then they would face the first seed in the Division Series, and the fourth or fifth seed would face the second seed. Doing so would properly create matchups based on regular season record.

The second change would be to remove guaranteed top-three seeds for division winners, similar to the style of the NBA. This would rank all playoff teams according to their regular-season records, but would limit the value of winning your division. For example, a division winner at 83-79 would be ranked lower than a 2nd or 3rd place team in another division that won 86 games. That division winner might possibly not even make the playoffs. In any case, both proposals aim to make playoff seeding more closely reflect regular-season success, although they differ in divisional importance. 

For the foundations of reseeding in the playoffs, we turn to the NFL. In the NFL’s former six-team playoff format, the lowest seeded team always faces the top seeded team after the first round. This could be an easy change that the MLB could apply to their six-team playoff in order to prevent good fourth or fifth seeded teams from playing the first seed in the Divisional Series. However, the reseeding would only be necessary if the sixth seed actually won their Wild Card. Since the MLB installed the current six-team format in 2022, Wild Card results show that the 6 seed in the AL won three out of five times (2024, 2025, 2026), while the 6 seed in the National League won three out of five times (2022, 2023, 2024). If reseeding had been used since 2022, it would have had a substantial impact on playoff matchups. Who knows if 6 seeds like the 2022 Philadelphia Phillies or the 2023 Arizona Diamondbacks would have been able to make it to the World Series like they did with a harder schedule? 

The second proposal is to eliminate automatic playoff qualification for division winners, following the NBA’s approach. Instead, all teams would compete for playoff spots based on their regular season records, regardless of division. This would ensure that a team with a stronger record could qualify over a division winner with a worse record. If the MLB removed guaranteed top-three division winners, here is how each playoff since 2022 would have been different:

2022 AL: No seed changes

2022 NL: Mets move from 4 seed to 3 seed, Cardinals move from 3 seed to 4 seed

2023 AL: Rays move from 4 seed to 2 seed, Astros move from 2 seed to 3 seed, Rangers move from 5 seed to 4 seed, Blue Jays move from 6 seed to 5 seed, AL Central winners and 3 seed Twins drop out of the playoffs, Mariners jump into the playoffs as the 6 seed

2023 NL: No seed changes

2024 AL: Orioles move from 4 seed to 3 seed, Astros move from 3 seed to 4 seed

2024 NL: Padres move from 4 seed to 3 seed, Brewers move from 3 seed to 4 seed

2025 AL: Yankees move from 4 seed to 2 seed, Mariners move from 2 seed to 3 seed, Red Sox move from 5 seed to 4 seed, Guardians move from 3 seed to 5 seed

2025 NL: No seed changes

2026 AL: Yankees move from 4 seed to 2 seed, Red Sox move from 5 seed to 3 seed, Guardians move from 2 seed to 4 seed, White Sox move from 6 seed to 5 seed, Astros move from 3 seed to 6 seed

2026 NL: No seed changes

The need for playoff restructuring appears more pronounced in the American League than in the National League. In three of the five seasons examined, changing the AL playoff format would have significantly altered the seeding or composition of the playoff field, suggesting that differences in competitiveness among divisions may be affecting postseason outcomes. Although this imbalance could be temporary, the AL Central’s absence from the World Series since 2016 raises questions about whether division titles consistently reflect a level of performance comparable to that of other contenders. The current season provides another example: the Houston Astros won the AL West with an 81–81 record, the worst record ever for an MLB division champion, yet received the third seed and home-field advantage in the Wild Card Series. Houston lost to the sixth-seeded Chicago White Sox, who finished three games above .500. Subsequently, Chicago advanced to face the second-seeded Cleveland Guardians, who finished just four games above .500. Either proposed change would have affected the seeding so the playoff bracket would be balanced amongst teams. 

A record-based playoff system would have given AL East teams the top two seeds in 2023, 2025, and 2026, allowing them to bypass the initial Wild Card round. However, removing automatic playoff berths for division winners would also diminish the competitive value of winning a division. Supporters of the current format could argue that division titles should carry a meaningful postseason reward, including a higher seed and home-field advantage. Yet, the opposing argument is equally compelling: a team that finishes with one of the best records in its league should not necessarily face a more difficult path simply because another team in its division performed even better. The Yankees’ recent postseason experience illustrates this dilemma. Despite strong regular-season records, they faced the Red Sox in consecutive years in the Wild Card before losing in the Division Series to the top-seeded team in the playoffs from the AL East: the Blue Jays in 2025 and the Rays in 2026. Under a system without automatic division-winner berths, the Yankees would have received a first-round bye in both seasons as the second seed. While that outcome would have rewarded their regular-season performance, eliminating division-based qualification altogether would represent a substantial departure from a longstanding feature of Major League Baseball. 

Reseeding after the Wild Card round offers a more moderate alternative, allowing the highest remaining seed to face the lowest remaining seed without eliminating the importance of division titles. Ultimately, the MLB faces a choice between preserving the traditional structure of its divisions, or ensuring that the postseason bracket more closely reflects regular-season performance. One approach keeps the familiar boundaries of the game intact, even when they create uneven paths to a championship; the other redraws those boundaries in pursuit of a fairer competition. Until the league addresses that tension, some teams will continue to find themselves climbing a steeper mountain to reach the same summit.