2023 Playoff Baseball: Format and Rules
Everything between the end of February to the end of September has led up to this moment. 30 teams started on this journey. Seven months and 162 games later, the field has been reduced to the top 12. Let’s break the seeding positions for the postseason down real quick:
Representing the American League:
Baltimore Orioles 101-61
Texas Rangers 90-72
Minnesota Twins 87-75
Tampa Bay Rays 99-63
Toronto Blue Jays 89-73
Houston Astros 90-72
Representing the National League:
Atlanta Braves 104-58
Los Angeles Dodgers 100-62
Milwaukee Brewers 92-70
Philadelphia Phillies 90-72
Miami Marlins 84-77
Arizona Diamondbacks 84-78
The format of postseason baseball has had a few significant changes namely stemming from the 2020 COVID season. The biggest change to come out of the pandemic season is the expanded playoff field and the elimination of winner take all wild card games. This season, there will be four wild card series played between the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th seeded teams in each division. These series will be best of three games with home field advantage given to the higher seeded team: Arizona (6) at Milwaukee (3); Miami (5) at Philadelphia (4). Houston (6) at Minnesota (3) and Toronto (5) at Tampa (4). It is important to mention that at no time throughout the post season are the teams reseeded no matter who wins.
As stated above, the wild card series kick off postseason baseball this year on Tuesday October 3rd and can go through Thursday October 6th- should a series need to go to the third game. Once the wild card series have been completed, the winning teams move on to face the number 1 and 2 seeds in the Division series. These series are formatted a little differently because they are a five game series instead of three. The game formatting looks like 2-2-1 meaning the first two games and the last game (if necessary) are played at the higher seeded team’s filed and the middle two games are played at the lower seeded team’s field.This series can last anywhere from four days in total to an entire week depending on how quickly they get through the best of five games.
Once the Division Series is completed and the winners established, the League Championship Series (LCS) is next. This series, with the exception of the World Series is arguably the most important post season series to be played as it will determine which two teams will represent their respective leagues in their entirety in the World Series. Again, the League Championship Series is formatted differently to the Division Series. Instead of a best of five series, the LCS and World Series are best of seven series. This looks like 2-3-2 with the higher seeded team having home field advantage. The only difference between the LCS and the World Series is that the seeding used to determine home field advantage in the earlier series means nothing in this series.
Something incredibly cool and unique to Major League Baseball is that home field advantage in the World Series- which is played at the end of October- is determined back in the beginning of July during a little intermission known as the All-Star break. The winner of the All-Star game (played between the National and American Leagues) gets home field advantage for the team representing them in the World Series. For 2023 specifically, the National League won the All-Star game thanks to an absolute bomb sent over the fence in centerfield by none other than our own Elias Diaz of the Colorado Rockies (I will plug the team any opportunity I can because we get such few chances these days). Because of this, whoever from the National League grinds it out and makes it to the World Series will have a minimum of three and a maximum of four of the overall seven games played at their home stadium. The World Series is the top. The winner of the World Series will be the World Champion of baseball and crowned the best team in baseball for the 2023 season.
Once the World series concludes, the professional baseball season is over for the year and we enter the offseason. Which is a topic to be discussed at a later date. But another part of postseason baseball are the rule changes that are implemented. For the 2023 season, we will see the following rule changes being adapted from the regular season:
Pitch Clock: Pitchers have 15 seconds to start their wind up when the bases are empty and 20 seconds when there are runners on base. If the wind up is not started by the time the pitch clock hits 0, the pitcher incurs a ‘pitch clock violation’ and a ball is automatically awarded to the batter. However, the batter must be in the batters box and ready to hit no later than 8 seconds remaining on the pitch clock. If they are not ready, they can incur a violation as well and the pitcher is automatically awarded a strike.
Extreme Shift Ban: All infielders will be limited in where they are allowed to move on the field depending on the batter. Infielders are not allowed to start with more than one foot in the outfield grass. Additionally, there can be no more than two players on either side of second base at any given time.
No ‘Ghost’ Runners: During the regular season, anytime a game goes into extra innings, the team up to bat starts with a ‘ghost runner’ on second base. On a personal note, I think ghost running is a cop out for shortening a game that is obviously good if it goes into extras. Anyways, the ghost runner is the person who was out last in the prior inning. In the postseason, there is no ghost runner when a game goes into extra innings. Any and all extra innings are played like the first 9 are.
For additional/more in depth information about the postseason seeding, rules, format, and television schedule, I am going to direct you to the following links:
mlb.com/news/mlb-playoff-picture-and-bracket-2023
https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-playoff-format-faq
https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/2023-mlb-playoffs-schedule-dates-tv-channels-matchups-with-postseason-field-set-game-times-tba/
https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/2023-mlb-playoffs-baseballs-new-rules-including-pitch-clock-set-for-postseason-debut/
#MLB #Baseball #Postseason #WildCard #NLCS #ALCS #NLDS #ALDS #WorldSeries
