What if ... MLB had a Presidents' Trophy? A look back at baseball's regular season 'champions'

In "What if ..." one member of our staff proposes an outside-the-box idea for a particular sport, usually inspired by another sport. Today: Dan Wohl looks at what it would be like if baseball had an equivalent to the NHL's Presidents' Trophy.

The Stanley Cup is the NHL's ultimate prize, and a team gets to hoist hockey's Holy Grail only after surviving a grueling two-month playoff. This year's edition of the Cup quest began two weeks ago, but one big team award has already been handed out.

Since 1986, the NHL has given the Presidents' Trophy to the team with the league's best regular season record. While lacking the mythic grandeur of the Cup, the Presidents' Trophy is still kind of a big deal. Teams hang banners from the rafters commemorating them and everything. 

Only 11 out of 28 (39.3 percent) of Presidents' Trophy winners have reached the Stanley Cup Finals, which isn't unexpected considering 16 of the NHL's 30 teams qualify for postseason play each year. Playoffs in every sport are extremely fun -- watching your team clinch a World Series title is an exhilarating feeling. But I think we can also acknowledge that the World Series-winning team isn't always MLB's best over the long haul. Not to diminish the glory of a World Series title, but I think it would be good to recognize "regular season champions" who distinguished themselves over a 162-game sample size.

Anyway, if this sort of MLB "Presidents' Trophy" existed, who would have won it in each league in the past, and how often would the winner differ from the actual pennant winner? Well, prior to 1968, there would have been no difference, since divisional playoffs had not yet been introduced. Here's how it would have shaken out since then (caveats related to the unbalanced schedule and Interleague Play apply):