Each of the two leagues, the American League and National League, are divided into three divisions – East, Central, and West. At the end of the 162-game regular season, the team in each division with the best win-loss record wins that division and earns an automatic berth in the postseason. This means there are three division winners in each league that qualify for postseason play each year.
However, Major League Baseball realized in the 1990s that it was unfair for teams with strong records to not make the postseason simply because they happened to be in the same division as another team with an even better record. To address this, in 1995 the league instituted a “wild card” system to allow more teams with playoff-caliber seasons to continue competing into October.
Initially, there was only one wild card slot per league. So in each league, the team with the best record among the non-division winners would qualify for a new single-game playoff called the “Wild Card Game.” The winner of this game would then go on to face the league’s number one seed in the Division Series round. This single wild card format remained in place through 2011.
As more teams and fanbases wanted an opportunity to take part in the lucrative postseason, baseball expanded the wild card system again in 2012. Now, both the American League and National League have two wild card slots, with the top two non-division winning teams in each league qualifying for the Wild Card round.
When the current format was implemented, it brought the total number of playoff teams from 10 to 12, with three division winners and two wild card teams in each league. The two wild card teams in each league now play a new best-of-three games Wild Card Series, with the higher seeded wild card team hosting all the games. The winners then go on to face the top seeded division winners in the Division Series round.
This allows more teams and fanbases to stay engaged late into the season by keeping their playoff hopes alive longer. It also creates more potential playoff matchups and drummed up increased fan interest in teams not in direct contention for their division title by giving them another pathway towards a World Series championship.
Some argue it diminishes the importance of winning the division, while others counter that it simply provides more teams the chance to prove themselves under playoff pressure. Either way, the expansion to two wild cards per league has been very popular with MLB fans and a financial boon for the league and teams. It’s established itself as the standard format for deciding the American League and National League postseason qualifiers beyond just the three division winners.
To ensure more teams with strong seasons can take part in the MLB postseason without being at the mercy of divisional opponents, each league now grants two “wild card” slots on top of the three division winners, for a total playoff qualifier count of five teams in both the American and National Leagues each season thanks to this wild card system. It adds further excitement down the stretch and has been lauded as a success since increasing the wild card number to two over a decade ago.
