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Major League Baseball – Teams and Playoff Structure for Beginners

  • There are total of thirty MLB teams
  • Twenty-nine teams are based in US and One team is based in Canada (Toronto Blue Jays)

Table of Contents

Getting Started

If you want to belong in a crowd of baseball dads and kids, you need to understand the basics of MLB playoff structure.

It really is not that difficult to understand once you lay everything out so that is what I am attempting to do here.

It will take about 15 minutes for to glance over and get the basics down so get started!

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MLB Leagues

There are two leagues within the Major League Baseball:

  • American League
  • National League

American League

There are total of fifteen MLB AL teams belong to three AL divisions:

  • East
    1. Baltimore Orioles
    2. Boston Red Sox
    3. New York Yankees
    4. Toronto Blue Jays
    5. Washington Nationals
  • Central
    1. Chicago White Sox
    2. Cleveland Guardians (a.k.a. Indians)
    3. Detroit Tigers
    4. Kansas City Royals
    5. Minnesota Twins
  • West
    1. Houston Astros
    2. Los Angeles Angels
    3. Oakland Athletics
    4. Seattle Mariners
    5. Texas Rangers

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National League

There are total of fifteen MLB NL teams belong to three NL divisions:

  • East
    1. Atlanta Braves
    2. Miami Marlins
    3. New York Mets
    4. Philadelphia Phillies
    5. Washington Nationals
  • Central
    1. Chicago Cubs
    2. Cincinnati Reds
    3. Milwaukee Brewers
    4. Pittsburg Pirates
    5. St. Louis Cardinals
  • West
    1. Arizona Diamondbacks
    2. Colorado Rockies
    3. Los Angeles Odgers
    4. San Diego Padres
    5. San Francisco Giants

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Playoff Structure (new starting in 2022)

  • After playing 162 regular season games, each league will identify six playoff bound teams (instead of five teams in 2021)
  • American League Playoff will produce:
    • Two ALDS (American League Division Series) Champion teams
    • One ALCS (American League Championship Series) Champion team
  • National League Playoff will produce:
    • Two NLDS (National League Division Series) Champion teams
    • One NLCS (National League Championship Series) Champion team
  • 2022 World Series Championship will produce one World Series Champion team

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2022 American League Records

  • Top two AL teams with the best records, Houston Astros (#1) and New York Yankees (#2), earned the American League Divisional Series birth spots
  • Cleveland Guardians (#3) will match up against Tampa Bay Rays (#6) and Toronto Blue Jays (#4) will play against Seattle Mariners (#5) in the AL wild card series

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2022 National League Records

  • Top two NL teams with the best records, Los Angeles Dodgers (#1) and Atlanta Braves (#2), earned the National League Divisional Series birth spots
  • St. Louis Cardinals (#3) will match up against Philadelphia Phillies (#6) and New York Mets (#4) will play against San Diego Padres (#5) in the NL wild card series

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2022 World Series Championship Game Formats (and Home-Away games)

  • Wild Card Series
    • Best-of-3 games; all three games are played at the higher seed team’s home stadium
    • For example, in the NL Wild card series, Phillies will play all three games in St. Louis
  • Divisional Series
    • Best-of-5 games, 2-2-1 format
    • For example, in the NLDS, the winner between Phillies and Cardinals will play the Atlanta Braves
    • Atlanta brave will host first two games, then Phillies or Cardinals will host two games, and if necessary, Braves will host the final fifth game
  • League Championship Series
    • Best-of-7 games, 2-3-2 format
    • For example, if we hypothetically assume that Houston Astros (#1 in AL) plays the New York Yankees (#2 in AL), the ALCS games will be:
      • Houston-Houston-Yankees-Yankees-Yankees-Houston-Houston
  • World Series Championship games
    • Best -of-7 fames, 2-3-2 format
    • Same home-away format used in the League Championship Series games.

Bracket Updated as of October 6, 2022

Bracket Updated as of October 11, 2022

Bracket Updated as of October 23, 2022

  • Houston Astros (h) vs Philadelphia Phillies for the 2022 World Series Championship

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Playoff Structure (2021)

2021 American League Records

  • Top three AL teams with the best records were, Tampa Bay (#1), Houston Astros (#2) and Chicago White Sox (#3)
  • #4 ranked Boston Red Sox and #5 ranked New York Yankees played a single-round elimination for the wild card birth

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2021 National League Records

  • Top three NL teams with the best records were, San Francisco Giants (#1), Milwaukee Brewers (#2) and Atlanta Braves (#3)
  • #4 ranked Los Angeles Dodgers and #5 ranked St. Louis Cardinals played a single-round elimination for the wild card birth

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2021 World Series Championship Brackets

  • ALDS and NLDS series are best-of-five games; ALCS, NLCS and World series are best-of-seven games
  • Top three NL teams with the best records were, San Francisco Giants (#1), Milwaukee Brewers (#2) and Atlanta Braves (#3)
  • #4 ranked Los Angeles Dodgers and #5 ranked St. Louis Cardinals played a single-round elimination for the wild card birth

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Summary

I hope this brief article was able to help you to understand the basic MLB playoff structure!

For more detailed information, I invite you to explore links listed in the section below.