Baseball’s new wild-card format and what it means for the Cleveland Guardians

After an offseason full of controversy and negotiations, Major League Baseball changed the postseason format to include 12 teams in the playoff picture. Previously, the playoffs included just ten teams but now have grown to include an additional wild-card team.

Even better, the wild-card series will now consist of a three-game weekend series that acts as the first round of postseason play.

The top two overall records in each league get a first-round bye to immediately play in the best-of-five divisional series.

The final two rounds of the postseason, the league championships and World Series, still consist of a seven-game series.

If the season ended today, the Cleveland Guardians would sit as the No. 3 seed and would take on the Seattle Mariners, though there could certainly be some jostling between the Blue Jays, Mariners and Rays over the final stretch.

Although Cleveland remains on the hot streak that won them the AL Central , the Guardians lost six of seven regular season games to the Mariners, so that’ll be a major mental hurdle to overcome should they meet up in the postseason.