FanPost

Who holds the tiebreakers?

Hello everyone,

Now that the Indians have secured a playoff spot, I was thinking about who would have the advantage if two teams had identical records.  

I believe it is based on head-to-head matchups (and intradivisional record if the head-to-head matchups are even,) correct?

If so, then I believe it breaks down like this:

Teams:  Record of team with tiebreaker advantage.

Angels hold tiebreaker over the Yankees:  6-3
Yankees hold tiebreaker over the Red Sox:  10-8
Yankees hold tiebreaker over the Indians:  6-0
Indians hold tiebreaker over the Angels:  4-3
Red Sox hold tiebreaker over the Indians: 5-2
Red Sox hold tiebreaker over the Angels:  6-4

Therefore, here is the list of teams a team has the tiebreaker advantage over:

Indians:
Angels

Angels:
Yankees

Red Sox:
Indians
Angels

Yankees:
Red Sox
Indians

All teams have a tiebreaker advantage over at least one opponent.  For the Indians, they can finish tied with the Angels and earn the higher seed, but against the Red Sox or Yankees, we need to finish at least one game ahead of them to finish with the higher seed (this just goes for the AL East winner; the Wild Card still is the away team even if they have the better record over the Division Winner hosting their series, so we only need to finish one game ahead of whichever team wins the AL East, NOT both.)

Hopefully, this is helpful!

FanPosts are reader-generated, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Covering the Corner or the Covering the Corner staff.