MLB Playoffs format, schedule: What to know about 2023 baseball postseason
The 2023 Major League Baseball regular season is scheduled to end on Sunday, Oct. 1 and the 2023 MLB Playoffs are scheduled to begin on Tuesday, Oct. 3.
How many teams will make the postseason? How are they seeded? How many games are in a series?
Here's what to know about the 2023 MLB postseason format and schedule, which will be here before we know it.
As for who will play in the MLB Playoffs, that is an entirely different story. You can see the MLB postseason standings in our MLB playoff picture story here.
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2023 MLB Playoffs format
The National League and American League each send six teams to the postseason, three division winners from each league and three Wild Card teams, the non-division winners with the best records.
The No. 1 seed in each league goes to the team with the best overall record in that league.
The No. 2 seed goes to the division winner with the next best record, while the No. 3 seed goes to the remaining division winner.
The team with the best record that did not win its division gets the No. 4 seed, with the Wild Card team with the second-best record getting the No. 5 seed and the team with the third getting the No. 6 seed.
It pays to be the top two seeds. Those teams get byes straight into the Division Series, while the No. 3 seed takes on the No. 6 seed and the No. 4 seed takes on the No. 5 seed in the first round of the postseason, the Wild Card round.
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The Wild Card round is played at the higher seed over three days, with whoever winning the best-of-3 series advancing to the Divisional Round.
The winner of the series between the No. 4 and No. 5 seed will face the No. 1 seed in the Divisional Round and the other series will be the No. 2 seed against the No. 3 or No. 6 seed series winner.
The Divisional Round is a best-of-5 five games, with the first two at the higher seed, Games 3 and 4 at the lower seed and the deciding fifth game, if necessary, at the higher seed.
The winners of the Divisional Round advance to play in the League Championship Series and the World Series, which are best-of-7. The higher seeds get to host the first two games and the last two games of the series, with the lower seed getting the middle three games.
Home-field advantage in the World Series goes to the team with the best record in the regular season, not to the league that won the All-Star Game.
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2023 MLB end of season tiebreakers
MLB teams used to play a tiebreaker game at the end of the season if they were tied, but that is no longer the case.
MLB adapted a tiebreaker system to resolve ties and eliminate tie-breaker games at the conclusion of the regular season.
Tiebreakers are first broken by head-to-head records, then it goes to records in your own division, if needed.
A third tiebreaker, if needed is which team has a better record in league games that were not in your division.
In the unlikely event of another tie, the fourth tiebreaker is a team's record in their league over the second half of the season.
Interestingly, the fifth and final tiebreaker is the outcome of the last game of the first half of intraleague games.
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2023 MLB Playoffs schedule
Wild Card Round: Oct. 3-5
Divisional Round: Oct. 7-14
Championship Series Round: Oct. 15-24
World Series: Oct. 27-Nov. 4
2023 MLB postseason TV information
MLB Wild Card Series games will air on ABC, ESPN or ESPN2.
Divisional Round games will be shown on FOX or FS1 for the American League and TBS for the National League.
FOX or FS1 will also air the ALCS. TBS will air the NLCS.
The World Series is scheduled to air on FOX.
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Reach Jeremy Cluff at jeremy.cluff@arizonarepublic.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter @Jeremy_Cluff.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: MLB Playoffs format, schedule 2023: What to know about postseason
