The American League Central is one of six divisions in Major League Baseball. This division was formed in the realignment in 1994, and its teams are all located in the Midwestern United States. The Central is currently the only division in the Major Leagues in which all of its members have two or more World Series wins.
Team not in division Division won World Series Division won AL Championship
A Creation of division due to the realignment (the Chicago White Sox, Kansas City Royals, and Minnesota Twins from the AL West, and the Cleveland Indians and Milwaukee Brewers from the AL East)
B Due to the expansion in 1998, placing a new team in St. Petersburg, Florida, the Tigers moved in from AL East, and also to give each league an even number of teams, the Brewers moved into NL Central
The Chicago White Sox and Kansas City Royals are the only teams from the AL Central division to have won the World Series since the league realignment in 1994.
Team names link to the season in which each team played
** In 2008, the Minnesota Twins and the Chicago White Sox finished the season with the identical records of 88–74. A one-game playoff was held and the White Sox won it 1–0 over the Twins to capture the division title.
# In 2009, the Minnesota Twins and the Detroit Tigers finished the season with identical records of 86–76. A one-game playoff was held, and the Twins won it 6–5 in 12 innings over the Tigers to capture the division title.
In 1994, the Cleveland Indians were sitting atop the wild-card standings and would have qualified for the postseason as the AL's first wild card but on August 12 of that year, the season came to a screeching halt due to a work stoppage, cancelling the remainder of the regular season and postseason. In 2006, twelve years after the creation of the wild card, the Detroit Tigers earned the wild card ending the Boston Red Sox three-year reign of winning the wildcard. This also meant that the Central division had finally produced a "wild card" team that actually competed in the playoffs, becoming the last division to do so. MLB revamped the postseason starting in 2012, creating a new single-game playoff where two wildcards competed against each other while the division winners each received a bye. The winner of the American League wild card game moves on to face the top-seeded team of the AL in the American League Division Series. In 2013, the Indians became the first team from the AL Central to qualify as a wild card under the new postseason format. In 2014, the Kansas City Royals ended a 29-year postseason drought returning to the playoffs for the first time since winning the World Series in 1985.