Magic Number !!

[bpilktree]

A wild card and a trip to the World Series would be better then a division championship and lose in first round just saying.  

[vab]

William James Surhoff 

 

 

Edited September 10, 2023 by vab

[bluedog]

That win should count extra towards our magic numbers.

Sheesh.

[yark14]

13 hours ago, bpilktree said:

A wild card and a trip to the World Series would be better then a division championship and lose in first round just saying.  

[DirtyBird]

[Uli2001]

2 hours ago, vab said:

William James Surhoff 

 

 

Man, Surhoff had such a quick, compact stroke. It was hard to believe the ball could go so far off this swing.

[Frobby]

On 9/9/2023 at 8:13 AM, bpilktree said:

A wild card and a trip to the World Series would be better than a division championship and lose in first round just saying.  

Absolutely.   But a division title makes the path to the World Series much easier.  And, an AL East title is a big accomplishment by itself.  

[spleen1015]

On 9/9/2023 at 8:13 AM, bpilktree said:

A wild card and a trip to the World Series would be better then a division championship and lose in first round just saying.  

Well, of source it would since it's a trip to the WS.

Today, without knowing the future, winning the division is all that matters.

[Number5]

Primary target is the division title, but clinching a playoff spot is an important step, as well.  We have the tie-breaker on Seattle, so our magic number to clinch a spot is 8.  We split with Texas, so our magic number with them is either 8 or 9, depending on what the second tie-breaker is.  Our magic number vs. Toronto is 9.

[rm5678]

3 hours ago, Number5 said:

Primary target is the division title, but clinching a playoff spot is an important step, as well.  We have the tie-breaker on Seattle, so our magic number to clinch a spot is 8.  We split with Texas, so our magic number with them is either 8 or 9, depending on what the second tie-breaker is.  Our magic number vs. Toronto is 9.

The MASN announcers were talking yesterday about the magic number being 5 to clinch a playoff spot. So against which team were they referring to?

[Number5]

6 minutes ago, rm5678 said:

The MASN announcers were talking yesterday about the magic number being 5 to clinch a playoff spot. So against which team were they referring to?

No idea.  Seattle and Texas have 64 losses.  Toronto has 63.  Tampa Bay is well ahead of those 3, and Minnesota is the Central Division leader and not really involved in the wildcard race.  My guess is they were erroneously looking at the number for us to clinch being ahead of Minnesota, which would indeed be 5 if that number were relevant.  Its only relevance is clinching a first round bye and home field if we win the AL East and eventually play Minnesota in the playoffs.

[Number5]

It occurs to me that since Texas and Seattle have 7 games remaining with each other, one team must lose at least 4 of them, thus reducing our basic magic number by 4.  That would make sense as to how the announcers arrived at 5.  I guess that means that the Texas magic number must be at 9.  They must have the tiebreaker on us.

[MCO'sFan]

28 minutes ago, rm5678 said:

The MASN announcers were talking yesterday about the magic number being 5 to clinch a playoff spot. So against which team were they referring to?

Apparently, MLB sends out an update every day on the various teams and their magic number. It has to do with W/L obviously but also the remaining schedule and matchups for various teams. It sounded pretty complicated. I assume they are just going off that number. 

[SteveA]

9 minutes ago, Number5 said:

It occurs to me that since Texas and Seattle have 7 games remaining with each other, one team must lose at least 4 of them, thus reducing our basic magic number by 4.  That would make sense as to how the announcers arrived at 5.  I guess that means that the Texas magic number must be at 9.  They must have the tiebreaker on us.

We split our 6 games with Texas.   The next tiebreaker is record in your own division (even if the teams competing are in different divisions!)

Our AL East record is 28-16 (with 8 games remaining).

Their AL West record 23-19 (with 10 games remaining).

So right now, we appear to have the tiebreak with Texas.   However, if enough calamitous events occurred so that they were actually tied with us and the tiebreak mattered, we would probably have lost many of those 8 division games and they would probably have won most of theirs, and at that point they might have a better division record than us.

[Number5]

3 minutes ago, SteveA said:

We split our 6 games with Texas.   The next tiebreaker is record in your own division (even if the teams competing are in different divisions!)

Our AL East record is 28-16 (with 8 games remaining).

Their AL West record 23-19 (with 10 games remaining).

So right now, we appear to have the tiebreak with Texas.   However, if enough calamitous events occurred so that they were actually tied with us and the tiebreak mattered, we would probably have lost many of those 8 division games and they would probably have won most of theirs, and at that point they might have a better division record than us.

Makes sense, and since the tie-breaker with Texas is not yet decided, we can't consider that game in hand for us, thereby giving us a magic number of 5, rather than 4.  In any case, the fact that Texas has so many games let with Seattle, our odds of clinching a playoff spot are really, really good.  Gotta be on the order of 99% plus.  Tampa Bay and Toronto are helped out by the Seattle-Texas schedule big-time.