In
Major League Baseball (MLB), the
wild card teams are the two teams in each of the two leagues (
American and
National) that have qualified for the
postseason despite failing to win their
division. Both teams in each league possess the two best
winning percentages in their respective league after the three
division winners. The wild card was first instituted in MLB in 1994, with one wild card team per league advancing to the
Division Series in the postseason to face a division winner. In 2012, the system was modified to add a second wild card team per league and pit each league's wild card teams against each other in a
play-in game—the
MLB wild-card game—the winner of whom would then advance to the Division Series. This system ensures that the team with the second-best record in each league will get a postseason berth even if it isn't a division champion.