MLB Wild Card

In Major League Baseball (MLB), the wild-card teams are the two teams in each of the two leagues (American and National) that have qualified for the postseason despite failing to win their division. Both teams in each league possess the two best winning percentages in their respective league after the three division winners. The wild card was first instituted in MLB in 1994, with one wild-card team per league advancing to the Division Series in the postseason to face a division winner. In 2012, the system was modified to add a second wild-card team per league and pit each league's wild-card teams against each other in a play-in game—the MLB wild-card game—the winner of which would then advance to the Division Series and play the team with the best record. This system ensures that the team with the second-best record in each league, after the three division winners and the team with the first-best record in the league that is a non-division winner, will also get a postseason berth, even if it isn't a division champion.

From 1969 through 1993, division leaders in each league advanced to the League Championship Series, with the winners of each LCS meeting in the World Series. However, an expanding number of teams over the years made making the playoffs increasingly difficult. The new system was instituted in 1994 (but first used in 1995 because a players strike canceled the 1994 playoffs) when Major League Baseball expanded from two to three divisions per league. In the new three-division leagues, each league had four teams in the playoffs. In addition to the three division winners, a wild-card team made the playoffs as the fourth seed. This was the team with the most wins amongst non-division winners. The wild-card matchup was played in the first round between the League leader in wins and the wild-card team, unless both teams were in the same division, which resulted in the wild card facing the second-best division winner in the league.

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