MLB Playoff Seeding Penalizes Best Teams: Reseed Fix — SkimNews
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- MLB's postseason format — in place since 2022 — awards byes to the two division winners with the best records, not the two teams with the best overall records, and for the third time in four years a team with the second-best record in its league will be bumped from the No. 2 seed to the No. 4 seed and forced into the Wild Card Series.
- The 2026 AL East is the latest casualty: the Rays (95-60) are lined up to win the division while the Yankees (89-66) finish second, giving the AL its two best records — yet Tampa gets the bye and New York plays in the Wild Card Series, with the second bye going to an AL Central or AL West winner finishing at least eight games behind the Yankees.
- The Yankees are set to face the Red Sox (84-72) in the Wild Card Series, with the winner then facing the Rays in the ALDS because the format mandates the No. 1 seed play the No. 4-vs.-No. 5 winner — and the article notes the Red Sox would be better off tanking to fall to the No. 6 seed for an easier path.
- The proposed fix is reseeding — either reordering all six teams 1-6 by record before the Wild Card Series (which last year would have given the 94-win Yankees the bye over the 90-win Mariners and eliminated the Guardians-Tigers AL Central matchup) or reseeding after the Wild Card round.
- Last year's AL bracket exposed the flaw: the Blue Jays (94-68) and Yankees (94-68) finished tied for the league's best record, but because Toronto won the division on Game 162, the Blue Jays had to play the 94-win Yankees in the ALDS instead of the 87-win Tigers, a direct consequence of seeding by division.
- The format could change soon: the upcoming collective bargaining agreement may expand the postseason to 14 teams, potentially making the reseeding debate moot — but for now, the article argues, the No. 1 seed in the AL will have to face either the No. 2 or No. 3 team while lesser contenders get a softer ALCS path.
Why it matters: Under the current rules, the 94-win Yankees are penalized while a division winner with potentially eight fewer wins gets a bye and an easier bracket, meaning the league's best teams can be eliminated by a format that rewards winning a weak division over winning more games. Reseeding would directly tie playoff rewards to regular-season performance and could push contenders to play harder down the stretch rather than jockey for a softer seed.
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