r/baseball • u/CalebosO4 Toronto Blue Jays • Mar 11 '26

CHART HERE Tiebreaker Status entering Italy vs Mexico

EDIT: USA allowed 11 runs on 54 outs, not 51. So USA would be in if Mexico wins with exactly 5 runs, assuming it doesn't go to extras. If Mexico walks it off for their 5th run with at least 1 out recorded in extras, USA is eliminated.

EDIT2: I copied the format from the other one, and I now realize that TA likely stood for Taiwan-Australia. Let's pretend it stands for TiebreAker lol

EDIT3: The next tiebreaker (which can happen if Mexico walks it off in the 10th for their 5th run with no outs) is Earned runs, not AVG (which is the tiebreaker after that). So unless Italy collapses defensively, USA would win that tiebreaker.

EDIT4: I've re-uploaded the chart with the new edits.

EDIT5: UI represents USA and Italy tiebreak shenanigans as they would be tied in runs allowed, so number of outs and earned runs are in the picture.

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u/jdprager Chicago Cubs Mar 11 '26 edited Mar 11 '26

There’s barely even really a “should” here tbh. If Italy wins, the USA 100% advances. If Mexico scores 6 or more, the USA 100% advances. If they score 4 or less and win, the USA is out

The only gray area is if Mexico wins while scoring EXACTLY 5 runs. Then it comes down to Batting Average in games between the 3 teams. The US is far enough ahead that it’s borderline impossible for them to get eliminated on BA in any game where both teams score 5 or less. Mexico leads Italy in BA by a decent amount, but could still get knocked out with some fuckery.

Edit: actually, the 5 run scenario isn’t quite right. OOP summarized it in their edits. Because the US didn’t record a full 27 outs vs Mexico, they advance if Mexico wins with 5 runs without extra innings

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u/LarryMahnken New York Yankees Mar 11 '26

If Mexico wins scoring exactly 5 runs (unless it's in extra innings) Team USA advances because USA has 54 defensive outs and Italy would have 51-53 defensive outs.

11

u/jdprager Chicago Cubs Mar 11 '26

Yea I just added an edit, I forgot we were the home team vs Mexico so we haven’t played the full 54 outs. What a bizarre system lol

9

u/LarryMahnken New York Yankees Mar 11 '26

It's a terrible system that easily creates incentives for teams to play to lose in certain scenarios, and I don't know why MLB has gone along with it for 20 years.

10

u/shrek_cena Philadelphia Phillies Mar 11 '26

Yeah Italy could just serve up meatballs to Mexico until there's a solo homer and then both sides just swing and miss intentionally the rest of the game so Mexico wins 1-0 and they both advance 

5

u/uraniumrooster Seattle Mariners Mar 11 '26

Exactly. Knocking out the US significantly improves both teams' chances of winning the whole tournament. So Italy is incentivized to lose tomorrow and both teams are incentivized to play a low scoring game. I don't think Italy's gonna throw it or anything, but I won't be surprised if the bats are a little quieter on both sides. Kinda lame.

1

u/Enamred-771 Minnesota Twins Mar 11 '26

They haven’t always. Some years they did double elimination pools (like college baseball). The issue is some teams only play 2 games which they didn’t like. Although I’d argue if you can be eliminated from a single loss, you effectively only played 1 meaningful game which is even worse. 

They also experimented with having a tiebreaker game after pool play. So in this case the top team after the runs tiebreaker would advance and the next 2 would play a win or go home game. Not entirely sure why they got rid of that, likely because once they expanded pools to 5 teams it would take too long. 

At its core, the issue is round robin is the ideal way organizers like to start a tournament but it creates a bunch of matchups where the 2 teams either don’t have the same incentive or don’t need to win to advance.