Untangling MLB’s playoff tiebreaker scenarios

With just six games remaining in the 2024 regular season, the Detroit Tigers find themselves locked in a tie with the Kansas City Royals with identical records of 82- 74. Both teams are one game up on the Minnesota Twins, and two games up on the Seattle Mariners. At stake are the last two wild card playoff spots, with the Baltimore Orioles positioned in the first wild card spot, four games ahead of the Tigers and Royals.

There will be no “game 163”, as Major League Baseball ditched the one game playoff when they decided to expand the post season to a dozen teams and to make the wild card round a best of three series instead of a one game “play in”.

Instead of the playoff, MLB will use a…