magic number

[sennalvr]

I didn't know where to put this question. Not really sure if it's trivia or what. So if the mod wants to move it, feel free.

My question is really very simple. How do you figure out a teams "magic number"? That is, the number associated with the clinching of a division title.

I thought it would be the (total games - games played) - the number of games behind(by the 2nd place team).

For instance, the New York Mets have played 146 games. Therefore, they have 16 games remaining in their schedule. The Phillies are 11.5 games behind. So, the Mets "magic number" is 1.

Is this correct or not? I've plugged in the numbers for all the division leading teams, and except for Detroit, the number comes out right(according to what Yahoo Sports has listed).

Somebody help me!! :ughh

[soberdennis]

Determine how many wins the second place team will have if it wins the rest of its games. then determine how many games the first place team needs to have one more win. that is the magic number. It goes down with each first place team and each second place team loss.
example
team A is 84-57
team B is 78-64

The best team B can do is 98 wins
Team A needs 15 wins to have 99.
Team A's magic number is 15.
If A wins and B loses next day it would be 13.
A wins or B loses and it would be 14.,

[soberdennis]

On the Tigers
Detroit is 88-59
minnesota is 86-61
Minnesota can win 101 games
Detroit needs 14 wins for 102
so their magic number is 14.

[wamby]

Figure out how games the first place team has left, add one and then subtract the difference in the lost column beyween the forst and second place teams.

If Tigers 88-59
Twins 86-61 then:

Tigers have 15 games left, plus one equals 16. The difference in the lost column is two. 16-2=14.

[Brian McKenna]

What's the Magic Number in Baseball?
What's the Magic Number in baseball? It's simply the number of games that the team leading a division needs to win to ensure winning the division. If you're leading the division with ten games remaining and your Magic Number is three, you only need to win three of those ten games to ensure winning the division. Each time you win, your Magic Number goes down by one. Each time your nearest divisional competitor loses, your Magic Number also goes down by one. When your Magic Number hits zero, you've clinched the division.

You calculate your Magic Number by looking at the number of games remaining in the season and assuming that your nearest competitor will win all of their remaining games. Then you see how many games you still need to win to ensure the division title even with your nearest competitor winning all their remaining games.

Since the mighty Minnesota Twins are still atop the AL Central, I thought I'd start tracking their Magic Number. So I searched around on the web and found two different methods of calculation.

One method, endorsed by Major League Baseball is to take the number of games remaining for the division leaders, add 1, then subtract the difference in the number of losses between the leaders and the second place team. In other words:

M = G1 + 1 - ( L2 - L1 )
Another method, which I read on the web here, starts with the number of games remaining for the second place team, again adds 1, then subtracts the difference in the wins between first and second place. Or:

M = G2 + 1 - ( W1 - W2 )
So, is either formula better than the other, or are they equivalent? And how am I just supposed to know how many games these teams have left to play? Well, we can replace the number of remaining games by the total number of games in the regular season (162) minus the number of games played so far, which is just wins plus losses.

For the Major League formula, this becomes:

M = ( 162 - ( W1 + L1 ) ) + 1 - ( L2 - L1 )
Which expands to:

M = 162 - W1 - L1 + 1 - L2 + L1
The L1 cancels out, and the 162 and 1 combine, to leave:

M = 163 - W1 - L2
For the second method, we get:

M = ( 162 - ( W2 + L2 ) + 1 - ( W1 - W2 )
Which expands to:

M = 162 - W2 - L2 + 1 - W1 + W2
In this case, the W2 cancels out. The 162 and 1 still combine, leaving us with:

M = 163 - L2 - W1
Which is exactly what we ended up with using the Major League formula.

In closing, the Magic Number for a division-leading Major League Baseball team is simply 163 minus the number of wins the first place team has, then minus the number of losses the second place team has:

M = 163 - W1 - L2

http://www.obsoletecomputermuseum.org/magic/magicexpo.shtml

[sennalvr]

Thanks soberdennis and wamby for clearing that up for me. bkmckenna that was a rather long and interesting write up! But still glad you guys came to my rescue.

Uh, bkmckenna, I think you and I must be on 2 different planets. :rolleyes:
Last time I looked Detroit was still 2 games ahead of the Twins! :dance