What If MLB Played by the Rules of the NFL?

We always hear that one of the things that makes the National Football League so great is that every team has a better shot at the playoffs than in Major League Baseball, where it's alleged that (pick your favorite percentage) so many teams have no shot at the post-season.

But is this really true? Or is it simply a mirage created by the extra teams that make the playoffs in football combined with a shorter schedule and chances for a team to get hot at the right time?

Since 2002, 27 different NFL teams have made the playoffs, 13 in the AFC and 14 in the NFC. Meanwhile in MLB, only 17 different teams have made the playoffs, with 10 in the NL and seven in the AL.

But, what if we take records after 16 games and apply the NFL's playoff format? Which league would show more balance? For this study, we will examine the results after 16 games in the current MLB season, but use the five-year period from 2002-2006 for our experiment, since both leagues have completed their respective seasons, thereby making it a more valid comparison.

Because of weather-related postponements, the Seattle Mariners have played fewer games than any team in baseball. The Mariners just passed the 16-game mark, so we can see what baseball's playoff teams would be if MLB played a 16-game schedule. In the NL, the Braves, Astros and Dodgers would win their respective divisions and the Mets, Brewers and Diamondback would be the wild cards. In the AL, the Red Sox, Twins and A's would be the division winners and the Indians, Tigers and White Sox would round out the playoff field.

Thanks to Retrosheet (perhaps the best online site in the world), we can go back and construct 16-game records for previous baseball seasons. We can learn two things from studying this from an historical perspective: 1) if baseball had football's schedule length and playoff format, which league would have more competitive balance and 2) how good are 16-game records at predicting which teams will make the playoffs?