One-game playoff
A one-game playoff, sometimes known as a pennant playoff, tiebreaker game or knockout game, is a tiebreaker in certain sports—usually but not always professional—to determine which of two teams, tied in the final standings, will qualify for a post-season tournament. Such a playoff is either a single game or a short series of games.
This is distinguished from the more general usage of the term "playoff", which refers to the post-season tournament itself.
Major League Baseball
One-game playoffs were used in Major League Baseball through the 2021 season. When two or more MLB teams were tied for a division championship or the wild card playoff berth at the end of the regular season, a one-game playoff was used to determine the winner.If a tie were a two-way tie for a division championship and both tied teams' have records higher than those records of the second-place teams in the other divisions, or between the two division non-champions with the untied best record, no one-game playoff was played. In this scenario, the winner of the season series between the two teams wins the tiebreaker for purposes of playoff seeding. Through the 2008 season, home-field advantage for one-game playoffs was determined by a coin flip, but effective from, home advantage was based on a set of performance criteria, with the first tiebreaker being head-to-head record.
For statistical purposes, one-game playoffs were considered part of the regular season. In a 162-game regular season, a one-game playoff was often referred to as “game 163”. The result of the playoff was included in the regular season standings and individual player statistics were included along with the statistics for the rest of the season. One significant playoff-like deviation from normal regular season games in force was that six-man umpire crews were used. Also, television broadcasting rights for all were negotiated by MLB – from 2012 to 2021, the network owning the rights to the Wild Card Game for a particular league has also had the rights to any tiebreaker that might occur in that league.
MLB scheduling practices stipulated a break of at least one day between the scheduled end of the regular season and the start of the postseason. The schedule was designed to maximize the probability that tiebreakers could take place on the day after the scheduled end of the regular season with no alterations to the postseason schedule needing to be made as a result. Nevertheless, the schedule could have been disrupted if rain-outs or other such events disrupted the schedule near the end of the season or on the day set aside for tiebreakers, and the tie-breaking procedure and scheduling would have become more complicated if three or more teams had tied. That would have required a series of one-game playoffs, taking more than one day. A series of one-game playoffs would have also been necessary if teams had tied for their division title also tied for the second wild card – in such a case, the division title would have been settled first, with the loser of that game then contesting a tiebreaker for the last wild card berth. There have been several occasions where such scenarios were possible as late as the last game of the season, but it never happened. To provide some additional flexibility in case of make-up games and/or complicated playoff scenarios, an additional break of one day was always scheduled between the wild card game and the start of the Division Series in each league.
Starting in 2012, with the Wild Card game between the top two teams who did not win their division, if two teams tie for a division title and both are in the playoffs, a one-game playoff was held because it would determine which team advances to the Division Series, and the loser would play in the wild card game only if its regular-season record since it was among the league's two best records for non-division-winners. When two teams tied for the top two wild card positions, an extra game was not held – performance-based criteria were used in that case to determine the home team for the Wild Card Game.
Finally, although tiebreaker games counted in the regular season standings and ultimately reflected in the team’s final records, they did not count for the purposes of determining subsequent postseason qualification, seeding, and home-field advantage. For example, if two teams had tied for their division title and also tied with the runner-up of another division for the wild card, the loser of the division tiebreaker would have still hosted the team tied for the wild card based on performance-based criteria, even though in that scenario though they would have technically lost one more regular season game and therefore be a half game behind in the standings. However, if a team in such a scenario had lost a divisional tiebreaker and then won a tiebreaker for the second wild card, it would have actually finished a half game behind the division winner and a half game ahead of third place in the wild card standings.
Avoiding any confusion with the term "Playoffs" as the often used but unofficial name of MLB's post-season tournament, the term "Tiebreaker" was MLB's preferred term for a one-game playoff.
Beginning with the 2022 season, MLB eliminated tiebreakers while expanding the postseason to six teams per league.
History
Through the 2013 MLB season, there have been 14 occasions where a tiebreaker was needed in a league, division, or wild card race. Of these tiebreakers, ten have been one-game playoffs and the other four were best-of-three playoffs. Prior to the advent of divisional play in 1969, the National League broke ties for its league championship with a best-of-three-games playoff – incidentally, all four of these series were ultimately won by the team that won the first game. The American League has always used one-game playoffs.Prior to the advent of the wild card playoff system in 1994, all five pennant playoffs in the National League had involved the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers, and both American League playoffs had involved the Boston Red Sox.
The 2018 season was the first to see two one-game playoffs, both for division titles – the first time divisional one-game playoffs were needed at all since the MLB postseason expanded to ten teams. Both were in the National League and meant that the Game 163 winners won the division and advanced to the LDS, while the losers met each other in the Wild Card Game. Under the pre-2012 format, only the NL West tiebreaker would have been played since the NL Central runner-up would have been assured the Wild Card. It was the first time that the loser of a tiebreaker game still qualified for the postseason.
No playoff needed
Since the advent of the wild card in 1995, there have been three occasions on which a tiebreaker was not played as the two teams that were tied for a division lead and the wild card. In 2001, the Houston Astros and St. Louis Cardinals tied for first in the National League Central with records of 93–69. In 2005, the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox each finished 95–67 in the American League East. In 2006, the San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers finished tied with records of 88–74 in the National League West. The team with the better head-to-head record was declared the division champion, thus receiving a better seed in the postseason. The other team was seeded as the wild card.Since 2012, when the Wild Card Game was introduced, if two teams are tied for the first Wild Card spot, no tie-breaking game was played. Rather, both teams simply played each other in the Wild Card Game, with the team winning the regular season series hosting the Wild Card Game. This has occurred in 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2021. Previously, these matchups would have served as tiebreaker games.
Make-up games
On some occasions a previously postponed game may be made up at the end of the season to settle entry into the playoffs. Although such a game is technically a mere regular-season game, it can have the effect and feel of a playoff.On September 23, 1908, Johnny Evers of the Chicago Cubs capitalized on a base-running mistake by young Fred Merkle of the New York Giants to invalidate a game-ending winning run. As thousands of fans were on the field and darkness was approaching, the game did not immediately resume. As it turned out, the Cubs and Giants ended the season in a tie for the pennant, and the postponed game was replaced by a new game played on October 8, 1908, at the Polo Grounds. The Cubs prevailed 4–2, and advanced to the 1908 World Series.
In 2008, the Chicago White Sox ended the season game behind the Minnesota Twins for the American League Central division title. The fractional difference was due to the September 13 game between the White Sox and the Detroit Tigers, which had been rained out and not yet rescheduled. To determine whether, if the game had not been rained out, there would have been a tie between the Twins and White Sox, the White Sox and Tigers played the make-up game at the end of the season on September 29. The White Sox won, resulting in a tie that necessitated playing a one-game playoff in Chicago, which the White Sox won 1–0. Make-up games were also played after the season's end in 1973 and 1981.
This scenario was almost required in 2006 had the Astros won their final game of the season against the Braves. The Cardinals, who won the NL Central despite only playing 161 games, would have been required to play a makeup game in San Francisco in this case as their September 17 game against the Giants was postponed. The Cardinals would have won the division in the case of this makeup game victory, but a tiebreaker game against Houston would have been required had they lost.
Between 1901 and 1938, during a time when games were more often delayed by darkness and not always made up, there have been at least nine occasions on which making up postponed games might have resulted in a different pennant outcome, but the games were not made up. Even today, make-up games that cannot be played before the scheduled end of the regular season are only played if there is a possibility their results could affect postseason qualification.