MLB Playoff Odds

MLB sends six clubs from each league to the postseason: the three division winners, plus the three clubs with the next-best records as wild cards. Twelve clubs in total, which is why a club can be nearly certain to qualify while its division title is a coin flip.

The odds column is a price, not a forecast we produce. Each figure is what Kalshi's market says a "Yes" contract on that club qualifying is worth — 62¢ reads as a 62% chance. While the contract is open that price moves when traders move it; once the exchange has graded one it stays at the result, which is why a settled club reads 100% or 0%. Where a book is tight we take its midpoint; where it is wide we take the last trade, because a futures market on a thirty-club field can go a day without one.

"Clinched" and "Eliminated" come from two places, and the page prefers the firmer one. Where Kalshi has graded that club's qualifier contract and paid it out, that is the answer. Otherwise the label is arithmetic over the records: a club is in once no combination of remaining results can keep it out, and out once none can put it in. Neither is a reading of the price — a club at 99% with an open contract and a live record is still shown as contending. 12 clubs are in and 18 are out as of this update.

The record and WCGB columns come from the exchange's own standings feed and are shown beside the prices rather than used to order them. WCGB is games behind the last wild-card place — the postseason gap rather than the division one, because that is the question this page is about: a club can be nine games behind in its division and still be holding a playoff spot. A club above the line carries its cushion as a plus, the club on the line itself reads as a dash, and a division leader reads as a dash too, since it is not in the wild-card race at all. Half games exist because a gap closes two ways, one win and one loss at a time.

Every row expands into the exact contracts behind it, with tickers and links, so you can check any figure against the market it came from. That is the point of the disclosure: a derived number a reader can't audit is worth less than a price they can.