Thursday, October 1, 2015

What if there's a four-way tie in baseball after Sunday?

All times Eastern.

While it's no longer possible for the Angels and Rangers to tie for the AL West crown because the Angels are an odd number back heading into an four-game set in Arlington, it's possible for one of those teams to end up in a four-way tie with the Yankees, Astros, and Twins!

Now, the only record at which this could happen is 86-76 since the Yankees are currently 86-72 and the Twins are 82-76. Note that as a result, it's impossible for the four-way tie to include any part of the AL West crown: if the Angels end up 86-76, the Rangers would be 87-75, and win the division. If the Rangers end up 86-76, the Angels would have swept, and be 87-75, with the division title.

In either case, whether it's HOU, NYY, TEX, and MIN, or HOU, NYY, LAA, and MIN,  the four teams would be tied for two spots: both wild card spots. Thus, there's no March Madness (October Oddness?) tiebreaker involving a bracket; there would simply be two games Monday, and the winners of those two would play in the Wild Card Game Tuesday as scheduled.

Who would play each other is determined by teams' choosing four designations, and then the two Monday games would be B@A and D@C. The teams choose their 'ABCD' designations in order based on their winning percentages against each other.

If HOU, NYY, TEX, MIN all 86-76,
HOU record against NYY, TEX, MIN: 13-19 (.406)
NYY record against HOU, TEX, MIN: 10-10 (.500)
TEX record against HOU, NYY, MIN: 21-11 (.656)
MIN record against HOU, NYY, TEX: 7-11 (.389)

which means the Rangers would choose designation A, B, C, or D, first, followed by the Yankees' choosing amongst the remaining three letters, followed by the Astros, and finally the Twins would be left with whichever designation is left. This would make the Rangers and Yankees the home teams, and the Astros and Twins the road teams.

If HOU, NYY, LAA, MIN all 86-76,
HOU record against NYY, LAA, MIN: 17-15 (.531)
NYY record against HOU, LAA, MIN: 12-7 (.632)
LAA record against HOU, NYY, MIN: 16-16 (.500)
MIN record against HOU, NYY, LAA: 8-13 (.381)

which means the Yankees would choose first, followed by the Astros, Angels, and Twins. Home teams: Yankees and Astros, road teams: Angels and Twins

Which team would host the Wild Card Game is the team that won the season series against the other wild card club. If the wild card teams are the Rangers and Twins or Astros and Twins, both of whom split their season series 3-3, then the home team would be the one that won more games in the last 81 games of the season.

What you've read so far is the most important part. Now you've understood how the tiebreaker will work. The rest of this is mostly my own speculation, and is certainly less apropos.

Since one game site is in the Central Time Zone (either Houston or Arlington), I can see the games being scheduled for 5:38 and 9:08, but most likely the games will be at 5:08 and 8:38 since the winners will have to play the next day at 8:08.

All tiebreaker games will be telecast exclusively by ESPN, and therefore Monday Night Football (DET@SEA) would be moved to ESPN2.

Sources: http://m.mlb.com/news/article/59527184/playoff-tiebreaker-rules
http://m.mlb.com/news/article/151417362/mlb-announces-start-times-for-wild-card-games

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