I’m sure Major League Baseball has a contingency plan in case the Cubs, Cardinals and Brewers all finish the season with identical records. But I’ll be damned if I know what it is.
How would a 3-way tie for a division be resolved? A 3-game round robin?
And to make things even more interesting, what if the teams that didn’t win the division would wind up tied, with each other or even with a third or fourth team, for the wild card?
Here’s the three-way tie breaker
A short playoff is done, with Team A hosting Team B, then the winner hosting Team C for the right to the wild-card or division playoff spot. The teams get to pick whether they are A, B, or C, and the order of the picking is based on their records against each other.
Teams that are tied for a division lead have a playoff for the division title. The loser or losers are then tossed into a subsequent tiebreaker with any wild card teams that have the same record.
The 1973 NL East race almost came down to a five way tie and there were provisions made for that. One team would have received a first round bye and the other four paired off. The winner of one pair would have played host to the team with the bye in a second round of games. The final tiebreaker would have been hosted by the winner of the game on the second day.