MLB Connections
Connections
#2
Fresh slate in --:--:--
How to play
Every one of the sixteen belongs to exactly one group — no player fits two, so there is always a single right reading. Pick four and submit. Get it wrong and you spend an out, though you will be told when you were one away. Four outs and the round is over.
Sixteen players and four hidden categories. No player fits two groups, so there is always one right reading of the board.
4 outs left
0 / 4
How to play MLB Connections
Sixteen players and four hidden categories, four players each. Pick four you think belong together and submit. Every player belongs to exactly one group, so there is always a single right reading of the board — no player fits two categories. Get a group wrong and you spend an out, though you will be told when you had three of the four. Four outs and the round is over.
Strategy & tips
- Solve the group you are surest of first. Every correct group removes four players and makes the rest easier.
- Look for the category that is doing the misdirecting. A board usually contains one player who obviously belongs to a group he is not in.
- Club categories and achievement categories feel different. If three of your four share a club, the fourth probably belongs elsewhere.
- One away is real information. Swap your least confident pick rather than starting over.
About MLB Connections
The grouping format works in baseball because the sport has so many overlapping ways to categorise a player — club, era, award, position, milestone — that a board can look ambiguous while having exactly one answer. Boards are built so no player satisfies two groups, which is the property that makes the puzzle solvable rather than merely hard. A board is also capped at two club-based groups, because four of them turns the puzzle into a roster-recall exercise rather than a grouping one, and the same category will not reappear for several days.
Frequently asked questions
Can a player belong to two groups?
Never. Boards are generated so that each of the sixteen satisfies exactly one category, which is why there is always one correct solution.
What does 'one away' mean?
Three of the four you submitted belong to the same group and one does not.
How many mistakes can I make?
Four. The round ends on the fourth wrong group, and a group you have already solved stays solved — outs only ever come from a set of four that do not belong together.
Are some groups harder than others?
Yes, though not by a labelled difficulty. A board usually holds one category that is obvious, one that is obvious for the wrong reason, and two that only separate once the first is gone.
Statistics come from Major League Baseball and cover every player since 1871, including the Negro Leagues, which MLB recognised as major leagues in 2020.