What Is a Magic Number in Baseball?
By Kyle Koster
It’s that time of the year. The time when the baseball season reaches its final lap and a special phrase re-enters the lexicon. Magic Number.
It sounds mystical and extremely cool. In reality, it’s only one of those things. Magic number is used to determine how close a team is to clinching a playoff spot. Those who hate math will be delighted to know there is actually very little math involved in coming up with the figure, which represents the number of wins needed by that team and losses by its closest competitor.
For instance, let’s say the New York Yankees have a 6-game lead over the Boston Red Sox and each team has 20 games remaining. The records are 80-62 and 74-68. Using the exact formula of:
163 – wins – losses by the second-place team, we get this:
163-80-68 = 15
The New York Yankees’ magic number is 15, meaning any combination of their wins and Red Sox losses clinches the division.
Let’s try another example.
The Seattle Mariners lead the AL West with a 85-70 record. The Houston Astros are 83-71.
163-85-71 = 7
Just as a magic number can be used for a division winner, it can be applied to the Wild-Card. For instance in the above example, let’s posit that the Astros are currently a half-game ahead of the Detroit Tigers (83-70) for the second Wild-Card spot. Houston’s magic number in this instance would be:
163-83-70 = 10
Whereas the Tigers’ Wild-Card magic number is:
163-83-71 = 9
See, it’s not so hard.