Baseball Standings Magic Number
How do you calculate the magic number in the baseball standings?
I know the magic number is the total of the leading teams wins and second place teams loses that will cinch the division for the leading team.
It’s a fairly simple calculation
Where Leadteam is the first place team and otherteam is the second place team:
162 – (leadteam wins + leadteam loses) – (otherteam loses – leadteam loses) + 1
the first part: 162 – (leadteam wins + leadteam loses) is just the number of games remaining so it can be simplified:
games remaining – (otherteam loses – leadteam loses) + 1
Example:
Minnesota Twins ……. 85 58
Chicago White Sox … 79 64
162 – (85 + 58) – (64 – 58) + 1
162 – 143 – 6 + 1 = 14
The Twins magic number is 14
09/24/2008 Buffaloes 4, Hawks 1