5 way tie for last wildcard spot

[krownroyal83]

So in my fictional league it had 5 teams tied for the final wildcard spot. I was curious how the game would handle it.

The game scheduled this

Team A vs Team D
Team B vs Team C
Team E sat out

Team D and team C both won their games respectively
Team E is eliminated even without playing a tie breaker game

Teams C and D will play for the final wildcard spot.

I don't understand why the game did it this way, and if there is an actual better way to go about it.

[Brad K]

There's a custom playoffs feature. Perhaps using it would work.

[venflaalachi]

Originally Posted by Brad K

There's a custom playoffs feature. Perhaps using it would work.

Not for the tiebreaker. The game doesn’t really know what to do in a 5 way tie, I’ve seen that before.

[Rain King]

How do you think it should have done it?

MLB doesn't play tie-breaker games anymore, they have a series of tie-breaker rules.

https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-playoff-tiebreaker-rules

Even before 2022, I can't find any details on how MLB would handle a 5-way tie.

They laid out the 4-way tie scenario with the A, B, C, and D designations (via various potential tie-breakers). There is no mention of an E in any version of the old rules I can find.

I imagine it would probably be similar to how OOTP handled it though by eliminating the 5th team without their getting to play. There is a limit to how many tie-breaker games can be played without messing with the TV schedule for the playoffs . This is the biggest reason why tie-breaker games have now been completely eliminated.

[Matt Arnold]

Yes, trying to devise a 5 way tiebreaker scenario, that stretches to a lot of days to resolve, so unfortunately we eliminate the bottom team and proceed with a 4 way tiebreaker.

[Mancandy]

As Rain King stated, MLB never had an official five team tiebreaker in place. Baseball Prospectus covered this in 2012: https://www.baseballprospectus.com/n...-to-its-knees/

I asked Katy Feeney, Major League Baseball’s senior vice president of scheduling and club relations, if the Commissioner could be capable of such complacency (though I didn’t phrase the question quite like that).

“To be perfectly honest, considerations for tiebreakers do not go that far,” Feeney said. “It’s not there anywhere. It’s probably something that would have to be determined.”

And again in 2017: https://www.baseballprospectus.com/n...ay-tiebreaker/

With the latter determining it would probably play out thusly:

Idea #2: Three plus two equals …

If a five-way tie were to actually happen, most likely MLB would melt together its procedures for a two-way tie with its procedures for three-way tie. Two of the teams would play each other. Three of the teams would engage in a three-way tiebreak. The two winners of those gauntlets would play a final game.

The schedule would probably look something like this:

Day 1
Team A at Team B

Day 2
Team D at Team E
Team C at Winner of A/B

Day 3
Winner of A/B/C plays Winner of D/E

Again, in the current three-team tiebreaker, MLB has some idea that it’s a bit unfair to teams A and B, because they have to win two games, while team C only has to win one. Team C is therefore relegated to the road for their confrontation with the winner of A and B. I think that same thought process raises an interesting question about how to assign home-field advantage for the final game on Day 3.

Team C plays their “semi-final” against a team that had to play a do-or-die game the day before, a game which they watched on TV. Teams D and E play their “semi-final” against each other on essentially equal footing. It’s reasonable to say that, knowing nothing else, if Team C makes it to the final, they had an easier path than did the winner of D vs. E. However, if A or B make it through, they clearly had a much tougher time than did the winner of D or E. I’d suggest that A or B would be given home-field priority against D/E, but that D/E would get home field against C.

If there ever were a real five-way tie, I’m guessing that this is what it would look like.

That’s certainly how I’d want it to play out in the game and if I were in that situation I’d see if I could use the schedule editor to make it happen.

[krownroyal83]

Thanks the import everyone. I feel like team E got screwed here so I'm going to compensate them. My league is completely fictional and I just let the league play out. I run a free agent draft the day before the spring training games to clear out the last remaining decent players that are free agents. I do a random draft lottery, I guess I'll give the team that got screwed the 1st overall pick haha.

[WhiskyTango]

Well, the current MLB tie-breaker rules system is the way to go. None of the teams deserve a spot because none of them could outperform the rest. Ties denote losers, not winners.

[OutS|der]

The only real issue is Team E should of been eliminated before the Tie Break games started. Since MLB likes tie break games there's no way to set up enough games for 5 teams without delaying the playoffs and that's never going to happen.

The only other option is eliminate tie break games and determine by any number of factors such as win %, 1 run ball games or whatever team stats you want.

Tie Break games are exciting and likely bring in revenue close to a playoff game, not to mention the TV rights. So they are likely never going away

[fredbeene]

Originally Posted by venflaalachi

Not for the tiebreaker. The game doesn’t really know what to do in a 5 way tie, I’ve seen that before.

so it can do 3 way tie but not 5 way. is that a feature