For those who dream of scheduling serendipity — or calamity, depending on your viewpoint — Christmas morning could be near.
Major League Baseball never has needed a three-team tiebreaker to settle postseason berths. But with a little more than one week left in the regular season, a four-team tiebreaker scenario is possible in the American League.
Entering Friday, FanGraphs.com projected these win totals for the following AL contenders:
Detroit — 89.8
Oakland — 88.9
Kansas City — 88.6
Seattle — 87.3
Perhaps the outcome will be tidy: The Tigers win the AL Central with 90 wins, while the A’s and Royals finish ahead of the Mariners and play for the wild card.
But what if all four teams finish with 89 wins? It’s certainly conceivable. Then the best kind of chaos would ensue. After consulting with the commissioner’s office, here’s my understanding of how the four-team tiebreaker would play out.
Monday, Sept. 29: Kansas City at Detroit for the AL Central tiebreaker. The Tigers would have home-field advantage, because they’ve clinched the season series against the Royals.
The Royals-Tigers loser would drop into a three-team, three-day tiebreaker with the Mariners and A’s to settle the AL wild card. The teams would choose to be Club A, Club B, and Club C, with priority dictated by head-to-head games among them. Seattle — which took season series from the Royals, Tigers and A’s — would have the first pick in all scenarios, making this the most likely schedule:
Tuesday, Sept. 30: Seattle (Club A) hosts the AL Central loser (Club B). The winner becomes AL wild-card No. 1.
Wednesday, Oct. 1: Oakland (Club C) hosts Tuesday’s loser. The winner becomes AL wild-card No. 2.
Thursday, Oct. 2: AL wild-card No. 1 and AL wild-card No. 2 play in the AL Wild-Card Game (which, absent this elaborate tiebreaker, is supposed to take place Tuesday) ... Meanwhile, the AL Division Series unaffected by the wild card will open Thursday, as scheduled.
Friday, Oct. 3: The wild-card winner begins its AL Division Series at the home of the AL’s No. 1 overall seed (the Angels or Orioles).
There. Now you know. You could call it a calamity. You could call it serendipity. Certainly, you would call it historic. And it would make for captivating baseball theater, the likes of which our national pastime never has seen.
