There was a time when there were no playoffs in baseball. From 1903 through 1968, if a team didn’t win the pennant for their League, it was, “Wait till next year.” The top team in the American League played the top team in the National League for the World Series.
In 1960, for example, there were eight teams each in the American and National Leagues. At the end of the season, the pennant winners met in the World Series. The other 14 teams waited for Spring Training.
The postseason was sweet and simple. It even stayed that way in 1962, as both Leagues added two teams, making it 20 total.
It continued through 1968, even if it didn’t seem quite “fair” in a way. After all, every season, 10 teams battled it out to see who came in first on the last day of the season. Only the pennant winners mattered.
Fast-forward to today, and teams with the fourth-, fifth- and sixth-best records—from both Leagues—have a chance to be crowned World Series champs.
How did we get here? Here’s how.
1969: A four-team playoff and the first League Championship Series.
For the first time, non-pennant winners played in the postseason.
Baseball entered the 1969 season with a total of 24 teams. Each League was forced to reassess how World Series teams would be determined, so MLB created an East and West Division for both Leagues. Here’s what MLB looked like in 1969:
AL East AL West
Baltimore Orioles California Angels
Boston Red Sox Chicago White Sox
Cleveland Indians Kansas City Royals
Detroit Tigers Minnesota Twins
New York Yankees Oakland Athletics
Washington Senators Seattle Pilots
NL East NL West
Chicago Cubs Atlanta Braves
Montreal Expos Cincinnati Reds
New York Mets Houston Astros
Philadelphia Phillies Los Angeles Dodgers
Pittsburgh Pirates San Diego Padres
St. Louis Cardinals San Francisco Giants
For the first time, four teams would be playing in the postseason, with two best-of-five League Championship Series. (It would change to best-of-seven later.)
- The first ALCS: The Orioles took care of the Twins with three straight wins.
- The first NLCS: The Mets also swept the Series, disposing of the Braves.
From there, baseball history was made when the Mets, who’d been the laughingstock of baseball just seven years before, won the World Series in five games.
The only downside was that a team with an excellent record could still miss the playoffs. That’s what happened to the 1993 San Francisco Giants, who had the second-best record in MLB but finished behind the Atlanta Braves in the NL West.
1995: Introducing the Central Divisions, an eight-team playoff, the Division Series…and a Wild Card Spot.
A Wild Card spot is introduced for postseason play to balance the playoffs.
Major League Baseball introduced a Central Division for both Leagues in 1994.* That created a challenge though—how to determine a pennant winner. The solution was to create a Wild Card spot for one team. Here’s how it worked for both Leagues:
- The three Division winners were guaranteed the postseason, of course.
- The team with the best record among all non-Division winners earned the Wild Card spot.
- Those four teams competed in the brand-new and first-ever Division Series within the League. There were two Division Series per League in a best-of-five format.
- The winners of the League Division Series played each other for the pennant and the right to go to the World Series.
So, the playoffs expanded from two teams per League to four, and overall from four teams to eight. This format was in place for 16 years.
2012–2021: Introducing the 10-team playoff and a Wild Card game.
A second Wild Card team is added for each League to give one more team a chance.
It wasn’t too difficult to see what the next change in the playoff format might be. In 2012, MLB added a second Wild Card team to each League.
- The two Wild Card teams competed in a single-elimination Wild Card game.
- The winner would join the three Division winners in the two Division Series, as before.
- A Division winner was ensured a spot in the Division Series as before.
It didn’t matter much to the three Divisions in each League: They simply waited for the fourth and fifth teams to play, to determine the fourth team in the Division Series. This 10-team playoff lasted 10 years.
2022: Introducing the 12-team playoff and four-team Wild Card round.
Suddenly, the sixth-best team in each League is given a chance.
After some negotiations, the owners and players agreed to expand the playoffs once again. It significantly, if not drastically, changed the entire MLB playoff scenarios. The regular League alignment did not change; there were still three Divisions in each League. However, there would now be the same number of Wild Card teams in the playoffs as there were Division winners.
- There are now three Wild Card teams per League.
- A Division winner is NOT ensured a spot in the Division Series as before.
- The two Division winners with the best records in their League earn a “bye” in the first round of the postseason. They receive automatic spots in the Division Series.
- A new Wild Card round was created for each League, involving the three Wild Card teams per League, plus the Division winner with the third-best record. The Wild Card round consists of two best-of-three series.
- The top two League seeds play the winners from the Wild Card round in a best-of-five LDS.
Here’s what could…and did happen in the ’22 season. The sixth-seeded Philadelphia Phillies played the Central Division–winning St. Louis Cardinals, who had the third-best record in the NL. The Phillies took that Wild Card Series, then beat the second-seed Braves in the Division Series, followed by a victory over the Padres in the NLCS, who’d finished with the fifth-best record in the League.
- That means the teams with the fifth- and sixth-best records in the National League battled for a World Series spot in the first-ever 12-team playoff.
In 2023, two Wild Card teams would make it to the World Series—the sixth-seeded Arizona Diamondbacks in the National League against the fourth-seed Texas Rangers in the American League. The Rangers disposed of the D-Backs in the World Series in five games.
Sure, this latest playoff iteration gives more teams and more fans more to cheer about going into the last few games of the season, as three teams in each League vie for a Wild Card berth and postseason play.
But is that what we really want to happen?
*The playoff realignment came before the ’94 season, but wasn’t in effect until ’95 due to a strike in ’94 that canceled the World Series.
Resources: wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Baseball_expansion; mlb.com/standings/2012
mlb.com/news/2024-mlb-playoff-and-world-series-schedule; cbssports.com/mlb/news/why-mlb-playoff-format; mlb.com/news/mlb-playoff-format-faq; wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Baseball_postseason; baseball-refference.com