Major League Baseball has 30 teams split into two leagues, the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). Each league has three divisions of five teams: East, Central and West. Every team plays a 162-game regular season. The standings show where each team sits in its division and in the race for the six postseason spots in its league.
How teams are ranked
Teams are ranked by winning percentage, not by total wins. Clubs can play different numbers of games at any point in the season because of off days, rainouts and doubleheaders, and winning percentage evens that out.
Winning percentage (PCT) = wins ÷ (wins + losses)
A team that is 90-60 has a winning percentage of 90 ÷ 150 = .600. Baseball shows it to three decimal places without the leading zero.
Games behind (GB)
Games behind measures how far a team trails the leader. It counts both the wins the trailing team needs to make up and the losses the leader would need to absorb, so it is averaged:
GB = ((leader’s wins − team’s wins) + (team’s losses − leader’s losses)) ÷ 2
If the leader is 90-60 and a rival is 85-64, the rival is ((90 − 85) + (64 − 60)) ÷ 2 = 4.5 games behind. The half game appears because the two teams have played a different number of games. The leader is shown with a dash (—) instead of 0.
Games behind is a convenient summary, but the order of the standings comes from winning percentage. Occasionally a team with fewer games behind ranks lower because it has played more games.
Division standings and Wild Card standings
Division standings rank the five teams in each division. The team with the best record at the end of the season wins the division and a postseason spot.
Wild Card standings rank every team in a league that is not leading its division. The three best of those teams in each league earn Wild Card spots. In the Wild Card table, games behind is measured against the team holding the third and final Wild Card spot, so it shows how far each club is from a playoff position.
The postseason format
Since 2022, twelve teams reach the postseason: six from the American League and six from the National League.
- Seeds 1 and 2: the two division winners with the best records. They skip the first round.
- Seed 3: the remaining division winner.
- Seeds 4, 5 and 6: the three Wild Card teams, ordered by record.
Division winners are always seeded ahead of Wild Card teams, so the No. 3 seed can have a worse record than the No. 4 seed.
- Wild Card Series (best of three): No. 3 hosts No. 6 and No. 4 hosts No. 5. Every game is played at the higher seed’s ballpark.
- Division Series (best of five): No. 1 plays the winner of 4 vs. 5, and No. 2 plays the winner of 3 vs. 6.
- League Championship Series (best of seven): decides the AL and NL pennant winners.
- World Series (best of seven): the AL champion plays the NL champion.
How ties are broken
MLB no longer plays extra tiebreaker games (the old “Game 163”). Since 2022, ties for a division title, a Wild Card spot or a seed are settled by a formula. For two tied teams, the first steps are:
- Head-to-head winning percentage between the tied teams.
- Winning percentage in games within their own division.
- Winning percentage in games against teams in their own league.
If a tie remains after those steps, MLB looks at records over the final part of the season against teams in the same league. Ties among three or more teams follow a longer procedure. The complete rules are published by MLB.
Clinching and elimination
A team clinches when no other team can catch it, even if the clinching team loses every remaining game and the chasing team wins every remaining game. Clinching applies separately to a postseason spot, a division title and a first-round bye.
The magic number counts down to clinching. Against a single rival in a 162-game season it is:
Magic number = 163 − leader’s wins − rival’s losses
Each win by the leader and each loss by the rival lowers it by one. When it reaches zero, the leader has clinched against that rival. From the trailing team’s point of view the same number is its elimination number: when it reaches zero, that team can no longer finish ahead. Because the formula does not include tiebreakers, a team can sometimes clinch or be eliminated one game earlier than the number alone suggests.
How the schedule affects the standings
Since 2023, MLB has used a more balanced schedule in which every team plays every other team at least once. Teams still play their four division rivals more often than anyone else, which is why head-to-head and division records matter so much in close races. Postponed games are usually made up later as part of a doubleheader or on an off day. A game that cannot affect the postseason may go unplayed at the end of the season. Only completed games count in the standings.
For definitions of every column in a standings table, see the baseball standings glossary.