If L.A., Cleveland, Red Sox and Yankees finish with the same record, who plays who and who gets home field?

Answer 1

This gets complicated.

I THINK you ask this assuming that no other team has a better record than NYY and BOS. However, if another second-place team in the Central or West had a better record than NYY and BOS, the Sox and Yanks have a one-game playoff for the division. Winner moves on as the A.L. East champ, loser's season is over. Central or West team with better record wins the wild card.

But I don't think you're talking about that situation. Therefore, there's a lot of typing, and MLB's rules explain it best. The linked page is from 2003, but I have no reason to believe the rules have changed since then. First, break the A.L. East, BOS-NYY tie with Scenario #1 (THIS season, NYY wins that on head-to-head record of 10-8). The loser is the Wild Card, and will not get home-field advantage in any series. NYY and BOS will not play each other under any circumstances. Next, break the tie among the three Division Champions in Scenario #8. I won't do that right now, I'm too tired to calculate how LAA, CLE, and NYY all fared against each other right now.

Answer 2

Yankees are leading the Wild Card by at least 5 games, so it's safe to assume both the Yanks and the Red Sox are going to the postseason. As mentioned, head to head is the division tie-breaker and the other gets the WC. I'm assuming the Yanks leading the head-to-head (said earlier) is correct, which gives them the division.

After that, it's seeded by intradivision win percentage, where Cleveland is the best at 46-23 (.6666), the Angels second at 30-21 (.588), Red Sox third at 40-32 (.583) and the Yanks last at 35-30 (although the Sox are irrelevant in this scenario if they are already relegated to the WC by virtue of their H2H record with the Yanks). If the intradivision record doesn't break the tie, they move onto AL record.

So Cleveland (1) plays Boston (4) at home and the Angels (2) play the Yankees (3) at home in the ALDS.

Right?

Answer 3

Boston finished behind NY in H2H record, so Boston is the wildcard (#4). The first tiebreaker (for this type of three-way tie) is the individual H2H records of the three division champions:

NY-CLE: Yankees 6-0
CLE-LAA: tied 5-5
LAA-NY: Angels 6-3

With no one team owning advantage over the other two, it gets complicated. (If you've read the excerpts from Rules 33 & 34, this is "Scenario #8".)

Second tiebreaker, record against aggregate opponents:
NY: 9-6 (.600)
CLE: 5-11 (.313)
LAA: 11-8 (.579)

So NY gets the #1 seed, LA the #2, Cleveland the #3. Since NY and Boston cannot pair up in the Division Series, the pairings for Games 1 would be:
Boston at Los Angeles
Cleveland at New York

(The outcome of this:
Boston demolishes LA three straight.
Cleveland takes NY to the brink, the Yankees barely emerging victorious in Game 5 after 23 innings.
Boston demolishes the thoroughly abused Yankees, 4-0.
Boston storms the NL champion in a rout, sweeping 4-0, taking the trophy home to the Hub with the only 11-0 perfect postseason record yet.

It could happen.)

Answer 4

It gets sort of confusing because the Yankees have the tiebreaker over Cleveland and Boston but LAA has the tiebreaker over the Yankees but Cleveland has the tiebreaker over LAA.

So Boston would Definitely finish as the Wild Card and not get home field advantage unless they make it to the WS because the AL won the all-star game. So it would be a scenario where the Angels and Yankees would play in one ALDS and Cleveland would play Boston in the other ALDS. Angels and Cleveland would have home field advantage.

If the Yankees made it to the ALCS in this scenario they would have home field advantage from their on. If the Angels made it to the ALCS Cleveland would get homefield advantage the rest of the way.

Answer 5

umm lets see yanks would win the east because of head to head record with the red sox so that automatically puts the red sox in 4th because wild card is always last yanks are above cleveland so i think it would be angels yankees indians red sox which would mean red sox-angels and yankees-indians which works for me yanks havent lost 2 indians in over a year

Answer 6

That is so unlikely. If that happened, the four teams would each play a one game exhibition match and then the winners would have home field advantage. The team with the BEST record has the option of when to start the series. I would say that the Indians and the Angels have the best chance of having the same record.

Answer 7

first of all, two teams in the same division can not play each other in the first round.... right now the Indians have the best record in the al and would play the wild card winner new york yankees, and the angels would play the sox

Answer 8

ok, i am confused. what has to happen for cleveland to play game 3 at home? since it is the only game i have tickets for :(

Answer 9

that cant happen