In 4040 Baseball the post-season is broken out into two rounds of playoffs, and culminates in a world series.
Each division winner qualifies for the first round of the playoffs, as does a single wild-card team from each league.
This adds up to four teams from each league:
There are two rounds of playoffs and a world series.
The first round of playoffs takes the following format:
The second round of playoffs takes the following format:
The world series takes the following format:
4040 Baseball handles up to 4-way divisional or wild-card ties at the end of each season. Following are how tie-breakers are handled.
If a single division within a league ends the regular season in a two-team tie for first place, a single tie-breaker game will be played between those teams.
If those teams had more regular season wins than the wild-card team, the loser of that game will replace the wild-card leader.
If multiple divisions, or the wild-card, end the regular season in a tie for first place, or if more then two teams are tied for first place, single-elimination tie-breaker rounds will be played.
Those games will take place on October 3rd and 4th, as needed.
Important: As stated above, this type of tie-breaker games are elimination games. The loser of a division tie-breaker will NOT become a replacement wild-card team. Their season will, instead, be over.
The two teams will play each other on October 3rd to determine the winner. The winner of that game will advance to the first round of the playoffs.
Two of the three teams will be randomly selected for an elimination game on October 3rd. The winner of that game will play the third team (who randomly got a bye) the following day, October 4th. The third team will be the away team in that game. The winner of the October 4th game will go on to the first round of the playoffs.
The four teams will be randomly paired to play single-elimination games on October 3rd. The two winners will play a single elimination game on October 4th. The winner of that game will advance to the first round of the playoffs.
Although controversial, frustrating, and not an ideal outcome, it is designed to avoid a variety of potentially cascading issues as quickly as possible: