Champions by year
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
* Due to the 1994 Major League Baseball strike starting August 12, no winner was determined. The Chicago White Sox were leading at the time that the strike began.
** In 2008, the Minnesota Twins and Chicago White Sox finished the season with the identical records. The White Sox won the one-game playoff 1–0.
# In 2009, the Minnesota Twins and Detroit Tigers finished the season with identical records. The Twins won the one-game playoff 6–5 in 12 innings.
*** Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the season was shortened to 60 games. By virtue of the eight-team postseason format used for that season, division runner-up Cleveland also qualified for the playoffs. The Indians were tied with the Chicago White Sox but won the runner-up honors with a better head-to-head record (Indians won the season series 8–2 over the White Sox).
Other postseason teams
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 an early end due to a players strike, cancelling the remainder of the regular season and postseason. The 2006 Detroit Tigers were the first team from the Central to qualify as the wild card. 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 moved 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.
In 2020 only, eight teams, including the three division winners, played in a best-of-three Wild Card Series, with the winners advancing to the Division Series. Starting in 2022, the Wild Card field was increased to three teams, and along with the lowest-ranked division winner, qualified for the best-of-three Wild Card Series to determine the remaining two slots in the Division Series.
† – Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the season was shortened to 60 games. The White Sox were tied with the Cleveland Indians but lost the runner-up honors due to an inferior head-to-head record (White Sox lost the season series 2–8 to the Indians).
(**) The Tigers and Royals were tied for the 2nd Wild Card spot, but the Royals earned the tiebreaker by virtue of winning the regular season series 7–6.
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