With third placed teams having a chance to reach playoffs, how will play-in work this year?

 

Let's say the season was over now with the current results standing. Baltimore, Cleveland and Texas are obviously through with Tampa grabbing one of the wildcards. Then what? Currently Sox, Yankees, Detroit and Toronto are all on .556. Would Sox play Detroit because they are in the same division? And which team would be playing at home, both in that game and in the next play-in game? And does it even fit into the schedule?

 

I know it's highly(!) unlikely to happen, but still?

Only found this for three-way ties...maybe this will give some clarity, or not

 

 

Three-way tie for the division or wildcardIf the three teams have identical records against each other in the regular season, the office of the commissioner conducts a draw with the teams designated as teams A, B, and C. First, team A plays team B with team A as the home team. The following day, the winner of the that game plays team C with team C as the away team. The winner of the game on the second day advances to the playoffs. The team designations are determined as follows:

 

If the teams do not have identical records against one another, and one team has a best record against both other teams, and another team has a winning record against the final team, the first team shall get the first pick of their team designation, the second team gets the second pick, and the last team is assigned the remaining designation.

 

If one team has a better record against both of the other teams, and the two other teams have the same record against each other, then the first team would get the first pick for team designation, and the other teams would draw lots. The winner of the draw would get the second pick, and the loser of the draw would be assigned the remaining designation.

 

If two teams have the same record against each other, and both have a better record than the last team, then the first two teams draw lots, with the winner choosing their designation first, the loser of the draw picking their designation second and the final team being assigned the remaining designation.

 

If each team has a winning record against one other team in the three team group, and a losing record against the other team in the three team group, the priority for choosing designations shall be chosen based on overall winning percentage within the three team group, any ties in winning percentage within the three team group will be broken by drawing lots.

 

"Mixed" three-way tie

The situation may arise that two teams from the same division are tied for the division championship, but they are also tied with another team from a different division, with that team not having the best record in their division, but having a better record than all of the other non-division winners.

 

In this case the two teams in the same division play a one game playoff, with the winner declared the division champion. The loser of the first game earns the #2 wildcard slot, and travels to the stadium of the team outside their division for the Wild Card Showdown.