David Richard, Nathan Ray Seebeck, David Richard and Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

With the passing of Labor Day, the 2026 regular season has less than three weeks remaining. While neither league’s playoff races are as turbulent as the AL Wild Card race appeared to be just a couple of weeks ago — to say nothing of the Before Times, when Major League Baseball used actual tiebreaker games instead of math to settle ties, and rooting for end-of-season chaos was a whole lot more fun — it’s time for a check-in to outline what’s at stake.

Right now, in four of the six division races — all but the NL Central and NL West, where the Brewers and Dodgers both have comfortable margins — the first-place team leads by four games or less. That said, the hill that the Phillies (81-64) have to climb to catch the Braves (85-60) is steeper than it appears, because Atlanta clinched the season series with a 5-4 win this past Sunday and owns a 7-3 advantage, with the two teams set to play their final three games starting on Friday at Truist Park. Thus, if the two teams finish the regular season tied, the Braves would be the division winner and the Phillies a Wild Card team. Philadelphia has to overtake Atlanta to claim the NL East flag, something our Playoff Odds suggest has just an 8.2% chance of happening.

I’ll walk through the other races in a moment, but once again, here’s a reminder of how MLB unties these ties:

1. Head-to-head records: This is self-explanatory when it comes to two-team tiebreakers, and if they played an odd number of games against each other, which is currently the case if they’re in the same division, then no other steps will be necessary. If more than two teams are involved and they have identical records against each other, then the team with the best combined winning percentage against the other teams within the tie wins the tiebreaker. If it’s still relevant, the remaining two teams are untied via head-to-head records and on down the line.

   If more than two teams are involved and they do not have identical records against one another, but one team won its season series against each of the other teams, then that team wins the tiebreaker. Otherwise, it goes in order of combined winning percentage against the other teams they’re tied with, as above.

   One additional point to add in the event of a tie involving more than two teams: If it has implications for both a division race and a Wild Card race, the division tiebreaker is settled first, on the basis of head-to-head records. For example, if the Braves and Phillies tie atop the NL East and the Cubs finish with the same record but behind the Brewers, the Atlanta/Philadelphia tiebreaker is settled first.

2. Intradivision records: This one is relevant only for two situations: multi-team scenarios where the teams all have the same head-to-head records within the group, or for two Wild Card teams in different divisions. In the latter case, there’s still a good chance they played seven games against each other instead of six.
3. Intraleague records: A team’s record against all three divisions in the same league.
4. Last half of intraleague games: If a team has played 48 interleague games, then this would be decided based on their winning percentage over the last 57 (half of 114) games against teams in their own league. And if that doesn’t work…
5. Last half of intraleague games plus one… or more, as needed: Under the above scenario, this would be decided based on their winning percentage over the last 58 intraleague games, then 59, 60, 61… as many as it takes.

Since I started with the NL here, and since this is my first foray into the Senior Circuit picture, I’ll continue with that. Realistically, there are four teams vying for the three Wild Card slots; I’ll include the Braves in the head-to-head breakdown as well.

From among these five teams, only three matchups remain, and only two season series hang in the balance, namely Cubs-Braves (which won’t matter unless Atlanta slips out of first) and Diamondbacks-Padres, which won’t be settled until the season’s final weekend at Petco Park. If the Phillies and Cubs, who are currently separated by half a game, were to end up tied, Chicago would claim the higher seed — the all-important fourth seed, which gets to host a best-of-three Wild Card Series against the fifth seed — because it won the season series, 6-1. If the Diamondbacks were to somehow leapfrog the Cubs and tie the Phillies, right now Arizona would have the advantage; the two teams split their season series 3-3, but the Snakes have the higher intradivision winning percentage, .609 to .558.

With the exception of the very slim likelihood of a Cubs-Braves tie — both for a 3-3 season series and for a finish with the same records — all of the other two-team NL Wild Card ties would be settled based on head-to-head records. As for a three-team tie involving the Phillies, Cubs, and Diamondbacks, Chicago beat each of the other two teams in their season series and would get the top seed, with Phillies-Diamondbacks coming down to intradivision records. Thanks to their other season series wins, the Cubs would also win three-team tiebreakers involving the Phillies and Padres (with the Phillies then holding the advantage over the Padres) and involving the Diamondbacks and Padres (with those two teams’ tiebreaker still in the balance). That last one would require a spectacular collapse on the part of the Phillies, who have a 98.1% chance of making the playoffs.

As for determining the top three seeds, right now the Brewers (90-56) and Dodgers (88-57) would receive first-round byes. In case those two teams wind up with the same record, the Brewers would be the top seed, as they won their season series over the Dodgers, 4-3. If the Brewers and Braves end up tied, because the two teams split their series 3-3, the tiebreaker would be intradivisional records, where right now Atlanta has the slightest edge, having gone 30-16 (.652) against the NL East to Milwaukee’s 27-15 (.642) against the NL Central. The Braves also won their season series over the Dodgers, 5-1, meaning that the two-time defending champions need to claim one of the top two seeds outright if they want a bye.

Turning to the American League, it’s time to bid adieu to the Mariners (67-78), Twins (69-76), Orioles (70-76), and Tigers (66-79) as going concerns. None has odds higher than around 3% — the Tigers round to 0.0% — and they’re no longer worth humoring within this context. That leaves eight teams still to consider in one way or another. I’ll start with a focus on what’s left of the division races:

The Yankees have remained within striking distance of the Rays in the AL East; it’s a bigger stretch to consider the Red Sox, whose Playoff Odds to win the division are down to 0.8%, but for variety’s sake I’ll consider them here. The Yankees-Red Sox season series has been settled in favor of New York, but the other two are up for grabs. Both will be decided on the Rays’ upcoming road trip, when they’ll play three against the Red Sox at Fenway Park from September 18–20, followed by four against the Yankees in the Bronx from September 22–24, including a doubleheader on the first of those days. In the event of a three-way tie, if none of the teams has a pair of season series wins, the tiebreaker would be settled by combined winning percentage against the other two. There are enough remaining games to shake things up, but right now the situation favors the Rays (.579, 11-8), with the Red Sox and Yankees tied at .454 (10-12). From there, the Yankees would have the advantage, claiming the top Wild Card seed because they won the season series.

Over to the AL Central, the White Sox need just one more win to secure the season series advantage over the Guardians. The two teams meet for a final three-game set from September 14-16 in Cleveland. As for the AL West, which could still produce the first full-season sub-.500 division champion (boooooo), that season series has already been settled in favor of Houston.

Whoever wins the AL East will almost certainly be the top seed and get one of the two first-round byes. If it comes down to a tiebreaker to determine the second bye, the Astros beat the White Sox in their season series, 5-2, but the White Sox beat the Rangers, 4-2. Both the Astros and Rangers went 4-2 against the Guardians.

As for the Wild Card, things get complicated because of the close AL Central and AL West races. I had hoped to focus simply on the teams in their current positions, leaving the division leaders out, but with Tuesday’s results the odds are now higher than 50% that at least one division lead will change hands before the end of the season. At the same time, the Yankees and Red Sox are far enough ahead of the pack that they’re practically a separate race, leaving five teams fighting for three spots.

Bad news: None of the Wild Card contenders still has a season series at stake beyond the aforementioned Guardians-White Sox three-game set. Since the Blue Jays and Astros split their season series, a tiebreaker between the two — which would require the Rangers overtaking the Astros atop the AL West — would come down to intradivision records, where Toronto (.500, 23-23) currently has a one-game edge over Houston (.478, 22-24). Since each team will play 52 intradivision games by the end of the year (13 against each of its four other rivals), this could still go either way.

From here, things get complicated enough that I’m going to break these up into smaller bites.

Scenario 1: White Sox and Astros win their divisions

This assumes that the current situation will hold, leaving the other three teams fighting for one spot. Though they’re sandwiched between the Guardians and Blue Jays record-wise, the Rangers have the tiebreaker advantage over both teams. Because they won their season series over both Cleveland and Toronto, in a three-way tie, they would prevail.

Scenario 2: White Sox and Rangers win their divisions

Because the Rangers lost their season series to Houston, they would have to overtake their intrastate rival to claim the AL West title, which our odds say has a 17.1% chance of happening. That leaves the three-team fray between the Astros, Guardians, and Blue Jays. As noted, the Astros won their season series against the Guardians, and a tie with the Blue Jays would be settled by intradivision records, where the two teams are currently just one game apart. Supposing they finish with identical records there, intraleague records would come into play; currently the Astros (.529, 54-48) have the edge over the Blue Jays (.505, 51-50).

If that holds, in a three-way tie, the Astros would win because they hold tiebreaker advantages over each of the other two. In the event that they don’t — if they end up tied, but the Blue Jays finish with the better intradivision record, or with the same intradivision record but the better intraleague record — the three-way combined records would have the Astros and Blue Jays both tied at .583 (7-5) with the Guardians (.333, 4-8) toast. That would make the Blue Jays the third Wild Card team, so long as they had satisfied the aforementioned conditions. It’s quite a needle to thread.

Scenario 3: Guardians and Astros win their divisions

The Guardians haven’t owned a share of the AL Central lead since July 21, when they were tied with the White Sox, and since then, they’ve gone only 20-24 to Chicago’s 22-22. But assuming Cleveland kicks it into a higher gear and wins the division (current odds: 32.1%), the White Sox would still be in decent shape, as they took the season series from both the Blue Jays and Rangers, and in the event of a three-way tie, Chicago would claim the remaining Wild Card berth.

Scenario 4: Guardians and Rangers win their divisions

If both the AL Central and AL West change hands, leaving the White Sox, Astros, and Blue Jays in the Wild Card fray, the Astros would prevail no matter how the aforementioned Astros/Blue Jays tiebreaker shakes out, because they went 8-5 (.615) against the other two teams, while Chicago went 7-6 (.538) and Toronto 4-8 (.333).

Alas, there aren’t any four-way scenarios to untangle without one of the teams I dismissed above (Baltimore, Minnesota, Seattle, or Detroit) suddenly Remembering How to Baseball, and I think we’ve seen enough to know this isn’t the year for any of them to do that. If I’m wrong, we’ll have some fun with the next installment. In the meantime, pour one out for Team Entropy, because these races could have been a lot more fun.