MLB Playoff Bracket 2024: Explaining Wild Card Format, Divisional Series and More
Joe TanseySeptember 30, 2024
Matthew Stockman/Getty Images
The Major League Baseball postseason opens up on Tuesday with four wild-card round series.
The three-game wild-card series will advance two teams in the American and National Leagues into the divisional series.
The current playoff format has benefited the wild-card teams in the past two years, as three of the four World Series participants started in that round.
A handful of top-tier teams would love to end the wild-card trend by reaching the Fall Classic, but the top two sides in each league have to wait until Saturday to hit the field again.
MLB Playoff Bracket
American League
No. 6 Detroit at No. 3 Houston
No. 5 Kansas City at No. 4 Baltimore
Detroit/Houston winner vs. No. 2 Cleveland
Kansas City/Baltimore winner vs. No. 1 New York Yankees
National League
Atlanta/NY Mets/Arizona at No. 3 Milwaukee
Atlanta/NY Mets/Arizona at No., 4 San Diego
Winner of Milwaukee series vs. No. 2 Philadelphia
Winner of San Diego series vs. No. 1 Los Angeles Dodgers
Playoff Format
The bracket will be finalized on Monday during a doubleheader between the Atlanta Braves and New York Mets.
A split would put both teams into the postseason. A sweep by either side would put the victorious side into the playoffs along with the Arizona Diamondbacks.
The Milwaukee Brewers and San Diego Padres await the two playoff teams determined by Monday’s games.
Milwaukee, San Diego, the Houston Astros and Baltimore Orioles will all host their entire best-of-three wild-card series.
The wild-card round takes place in three consecutive days from Tuesday to Thursday. A year ago, all four of the wild-card series ended in two games. Only one of the eight series in the current three-game wild-card format went the distance.
The wild-card winners move on to the divisional series to face the top two seeds in each league.
The New York Yankees, Cleveland Guardians, Los Angeles Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies do not have history on their side.
Houston in 2022 is the only top-two seed to advance to the World Series in the current format.
Only three top-two seeds made it to the championship series in the last two seasons. All of those occurrences took place in the American League.
The National League has had the No. 6 seed play the No. 5 seed and No. 4 seed in the two NLCS since the current format was put into place.
The division series is a best-of-five format with Games 1, 2 and 5 at the ballpark of the better seed. The lower seed gets to host Games 3 and 4.
The ALCS, NLCS and World Series are all best-of-seven series. The championship series are expected to begin on October 13 and 14, while the World Series opens on October 25.
