Run an MLB playoff bracket pool

An MLB playoff bracket pool is the baseball version of the office bracket: before the postseason starts, everyone fills out the whole bracket - every series, all the way to the World Series - and then spends October finding out how wrong they were.

How the MLB postseason bracket works

The current format sends 12 teams to the playoffs, six from each league, seeded 1 through 6:

• Wild Card Series - best-of-three. The 3 seed hosts the 6, the 4 hosts the 5, and every game is played at the higher seed's park. The top two seeds in each league sit it out on a bye.
• Division Series - best-of-five. The bye teams enter here against the Wild Card survivors.
• League Championship Series - best-of-seven. One team per league comes out of it.
• World Series - best-of-seven. The last team standing takes the trophy.

That's 11 series to call in total, which is exactly why the bracket is worth arguing about.

Scoring your bracket

• Flat scoring. One point per correct series. Simple, fast, and fine for a casual group.
• Round weighting. Later rounds are worth more - Wild Card 1, Division Series 2, LCS 3, World Series 5 - so a blown first round doesn't end your month.
• Bonus calls. Add points for nailing the series length (in 4, in 5, in 7) or the exact World Series matchup.
• Locks at first pitch. Brackets lock when the first Wild Card game starts. No editing once October is live.

Formats & tiebreakers

Run it for a friend group, a fantasy league's side game, or the whole office - it pairs well with an office football pool already running in the autumn. Ties settle on the World Series pick, predicted series length, or total runs in the clincher. Want the bracket without the pool? The free bracket generator builds and shares a blank one in seconds.

Every October someone screenshots a bracket into the group chat and then quietly stops updating it around the Division Series. Trofeo.live grades the whole postseason for you.

• Auto-grading. Every series result scored the moment it's decided - no commissioner, no arguments.
• Live leaderboard. Standings move in real time, so the person who called the 6-seed upset gets their moment immediately.
• Public proof. Bold picks are on the record. So are the safe ones that busted in the Wild Card round.
• No app for players. You set it up; they fill out a bracket from a link with a name.

Set your scoring, share the link, and let October sort out who actually watches baseball.