Video:How Baseball Playoffs are Organized

Transcript:How Baseball Playoffs are Organized

Hi I'm Ben Kurtzman for About.com and today I'm going to tell you how Major League Baseball's postseason works.

MLB Refers to Playoffs as Postseason

Major League Baseball's postseason is an elimination tournament held after the conclusion of Major League Baseball's regular season. MLB refers to the tournament as its post season rather than the playoffs.

The term playoff refers to the rare situation where two teams that have identical records following the regular season play a game to determine which of the teams advances into the postseason. That said, the term playoff is often used in place of post season by fans and media alike.

The Division Series Begins Baseball Playoffs

Both the AL and NL have three divisions – East, West and Central. In the first round of the postseason, known as the division series, the winners of each division along with a wild card team play a best of five series. The wild card team is the best team remaining in the league that was not a division winner.

The winning teams advance to the next round of the postseason, the League Championship Series, which is a best of seven series.

Home Field Advantage During Baseball Playoffs

The American and National League champions then face each other in the World Series, which is also a best of seven series. In the Division Series and the League Champion Series, home field advantage goes to the team with the better record. However, starting in 2003, MLB began assigning home field advantage to the team whose league had won that season’s All Star game which is played in July.

During the World Series games are played with American League or National League rules, depending on the home stadium. The team that wins the World Series wins a championship trophy, and the players, staff and management win championship rings.

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