Early Massive Tie Scenario

It turns out a five-way tie for both American League Wild Card slots is not all that complicated. The most wins for that scenario to work would be 92:

Team	Won-lost
Yankees	20-7
Twins	21-6
Angels	22-4
Orioles	23-3
Mariners	24-2

It might be a bit arbitrary to leave out the Rays, who are 1/2 game behind the Mariners. The Rays are one game down in the loss column (AFILC) and under .500. Since they play the Orioles and the Yankees, it would make things a lot more complicated.

In the above scenario, the Mariners would take four of six from the Angels, the Orioles could win all seven games against the Yankees, and the Yankees could sweep three games from the Twins. Needless to say, this is more likely to happen with the Mariners playing about four games over .500 (15-11) and the Yankees playing five games under .500 (11-16).

MLB only publishes tie breaker rules up to four teams. If a four-way tie comes out of this group for the two slots, two games are played, and the winners are the wild card teams. If four teams tie for the second slot, then the winners of the first two games play on day two to determine the second wild card.

A three-way tie for two wild cards is actually more complicated than the four way tie, since the loser of the game one gets another chance on day two. So teams would have to win one game to advance to the wild card round.

I assume a five-way would work where the two teams with the wost five-way head-to-head winning percentages would player on day one. The loser is out. Then two games on day two would determine the two wild card teams. That means that down the stretch, beating potential wild card ties takes on a bit of importance.

I suspect as September rolls on the group of teams and the potential ties will change a great deal.

from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/2gCJEPK