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What if there was no Wild Card?

You don't hear much about the old four-division format since Commissioner Bud Selig's brainchild -- the Wild Card -- has produced amazing postseason drama. The last three World Series champs have won the Wild Card, and in the 10 years it's allowed eight teams into postseason play, four teams have been crowned champ. ('97 Marlins, '02 Angels, '03 Marlins, '04 Red Sox).

And it's not just the Wild Card teams -- it has added an extra division winner into the mix every year. And of the 6 division winners that have won a World Series in the past 10 years, four of them had fewer than 95 regular season wins. In previous 10-year spans:

'95-'04: 6 teams
'84-'93: 4 teams
'74-'83: 4 teams*
'64-73: 3 teams

(*-'81 was a strike-shortened season, when the 67-43 Dodgers won it all. But their .572 winning percentage equates to 93 wins in a 162-game season.)

OK, time to run somewhere with this.

The point is, if the Wild Card was a flop in Selig's face, writers everywhere would be wondering what the season would be like.

For example, with the unpopular BCS Championship Series dominating who should play in the bowl games rather than a playoff system, places like CFBNews.com are known for making and simulating a 16-team bracket playoff for the national championship. But if there was a sound system in place, people probably wouldn't speculate on another system.

So having said that, it's best to go against the grain and pretend what it would be like in MLB's old four-division format. To refresh everyone's memory, the divisions as of 1993 were spread out like this:
AL East: Baltimore, Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, New York Yankees, Toronto.
AL West: California (Anaheim), Chicago White Sox, Kansas City, Minnesota, Oakland, Seattle, Texas.
NL East: Chicago Cubs, Florida, Montreal (Washington), New York Mets, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis.
NL West: Atlanta, Cincinnati, Colorado, Houston, Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego, San Francisco.

Seven-team divisions cut out a lot of good teams from playoffs over the years, like the '93 Giants who won 103 times, but finished a game behind the Braves.

So what would the standings look like today, assuming the Devil Rays expanded to the AL East, the Diamondbacks went to the NL West and the Brewers, who switched divisions in 1998 -- emigrated to the NL East?

AL East . . W - L GB
Boston. . . 53-43 -
NY Yankees. 51-44 1.5
Baltimore . 50-45 2.5
Cleveland . 49-48 4.5
Toronto . . 48-48 5
Detroit . . 47-48 5.5
Tampa Bay . 33-64 20.5

AL West . . W - L GB
Chi. WSox . 63-32 -
LA Angels . 58-39 6
Minnesota . 52-43 11
Oakland . . 51-45 12.5
Texas . . . 48-47 15
Seattle . . 42-53 21
Kansas City 35-61 28.5

NL East . . . . W - L GB
St. Louis . . . 62-34 -
Washington. . . 54-43 8.5
Philadelphia. . 50-47 12.5
NY Mets . . . . 49-47 13
Chi. Cubs . . . 48-48 14
Florida . . . . 47-47 14
Milwaukee . . . 47-50 15.5
Pittsburgh. . . 41-56 21.5

NL West . . . . W - L GB
Atlanta . . . . 54-43 -
Houston . . . . 50-46 3.5
San Diego . . . 50-47 4
Arizona . . . . 47-51 7.5
LA Dodgers. . . 44-52 9.5
San Francisco . 42-53 11
Cincinnati. . . 41-55 12.5
Colorado. . . . 34-61 19

Observations:

• The AL East is the most exciting race, with 6 teams all within 6 games of each other, and whoever loses to Tampa Bay the most gets made fun of.
• With two fewer divisions, the odd teams out are the old AL and NL West division leaders, the Angels and the Padres, who would both be second in the new AL and NL West.
• With Washington reeling, St. Louis would be a lock to win this division, too. And the Nationals, instead of tied for first with the Braves, struggle to stay less than 10 games within the Cardinals.
  
• The White Sox wouldn't be guaranteed the division, since the Angels would move into the neighborhood six games back.
• A few more teams, like the Rangers, Mets, Phillies, could make decisions on whether or not to buy or sell for a postseason run. (They would all sell, since they would much further back in the standings)
  
• But some other teams, like the Tigers, Diamondbacks and Astros, would have a more viable chance for a division championship, making their questions about trades that much more complicated.
  
• Florida would never, ever, ever win the World Series.
• Neither would Boston.
• Or Colorado. But that's a different problem.
  

There are a lot of problems to this comparison. For one, Atlanta is the only one in the old NL East playing in the NL West. A lot of their division games were played against over-.500 teams, so maybe their record would be even higher than 54-43.

Records current at the end of games played on July 22.