Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Playoffs!?

I wondered this at the beginning of the season, and it's pretty tough to find good sources onMiLB stuff. This includes the Texas League, so it was hard to figure out how the playoff structure in the league works, but now that the North and (for some time) the South have their first half winners it's probably a good time for a quick post on the topic.

The season is divided into two halves, each with 70 games. The team from each division with the best record in each half (so, 4 teams North 1st half, North 2nd half, South 1st half, and South 2nd half) advance to the playoffs.

In the event, like this year in the North, there is a tie for the best record (Springfield and Arkansas both finished the first half 36-34), the team with the best record in the division is declared the winner. Presumably there are other tie-breakers (probably head-to-head would be next) if the teams have identicle records in the division.

This next part I've gleaned, but I'm sure I'll be corrected in various places if I'm wrong. If the same team wins both halves (say, Frisco wins the second half of the South - obviously Arkansas isn't going to win the 2nd half) a wildcard team is selected. I don't know if the wildcard is the team that finishes second in the second half or the team with the second best record overall (obviously the team that wins both halves will have the best record, though I suppose it's possible two teams could finish with identical records for each half, with one team winning the tie-breaker both times).

Perhaps someone who knows how the wildcard is chosen can chime in on how the wildcard is determined.

Update - Anonymous tells us that the wildcard would be the team with the best full-season record among the teams that did not win both halves.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The team with the next highest overall record for both halves gets the Wildcard.

Anonymous said...

I would lioke to suggest a link to the local newspaper covering the Nats, The Morinng News

http://www.nwaonline.net/sports/

The Natural said...

Done - Thanks!

Anonymous said...

can't wait till next season