Can someone please explain the "magic number" system in baseball?

Most of these answers are correct but are much too specific.

The magic number is a countdown -- it never goes up, only down -- that indicates when one team can no longer be caught by another team in the standings. Typically this is only of interest to the division leaders and the lead wildcard contender, because they are the teams that will earn postseason berths -- but MN is just a simple formula that can be calculated between any two teams, even if the team of interest is behind in the standings.

MN == (season schedule in games) - (wins of team of interest) - (losses by opponent of interest) + 1

That last element, +1, is the necessary margin for securing position ahead of the competition.

For MLB, with its 162 game schedule, this reduces to 163 - Wa - Lb, where a and b are the teams of interest.

Let's see it in action with some hypothetical standings.

Patriot League North

1. Neurotics 91 - 60

2. Carmine Footwear 84 - 66

3. Deadbirds 77 - 74

4. Doormats 40 - 111

Neurotics to clinch ahead of:

Footies: 163 - 91 - 66 == 6 -- any combination of six Neuro wins or Footies losses will eliminate the Footwear. (Think about it. The Footwear have played 150 games, 12 remaining. Even if they win all of them, they finish with 96 wins. If the Neurotics win six, they have 97 wins -- uncatchable.)

Deadbirds: 163 - 91 - 74 == -2 -- the Deadbirds cannot win the division.

Doormats: 163 - 91 - 111 == -39 -- they've been out of it since Memorial Day.

But we can also work out what the Footwear have to do to secure second place, as well.

v. Deadbirds: 163 - 84 - 74 == 5

v. Doormats -- oh, forget it. They're toast.

And, since the Footies aren't yet eliminated from the division race, we can find their MN for beating out the Neurotics:

163 - 84 - 60 == 19 -- unlikely, but mathematically possible.

Again, MNs are primarily of interest for the race leaders, but it can be calculated for any pair of competing teams.

Magic Number In Baseball

Baseball Magic Number

When the two teams are tied in the standing and play each other an even number of times to play out the season in order to win a team needs to have an even number of wins to clinch. So if there are 6 games left one team needs to win at least 4 games. Most magic number calculations do not take this phenomenon into account when doing the calculations. Because of this the magic number can be two more than the number of games to played, rather than one more than the number of games. Why does this matter? For the sake of accuracy. I know at the end of the season when this occurs people stop talking about magic numbers and start talking about the number of wins. But this doesn't change the calculation earlier.

The magic number is when a team leads a division by x amount of games and the 2nd place team has more losses then games left!!! Lets say team 1 has 100 wins and 60 losses and team 2 has 98 wins and 62 losses with 2 games left, then the magic number would be 1 win by team 1 or 1 loss by team 2 to clinch the division!!!!

Magic number is the number of games a team must win to clinch a playoff berth. For example if the Redsox have a 3 game lead in the AL East with 13 games to go and there magic number is 6 that means they need at least 6 combined wins of the red sox and losses of the team behind them.

Number of combined wins and losses to clinch the division. The Tigers magic number is currently 14. That teams any combinations of Tigers wins plus Twin losses equalling 14 clinches for the Tigers. The Tigers have 19 more games to play--19+1 = 20. 20-6 (number of games in the loser's column they lead the Twins = 14.

Number of games a team needs to win + trailing team loses = MAGIC NUMBER

red sox current magic number is 17. Meaning if the red sox win 10 and Rangers lose 7 they clinch or any combination of them.

162 + 1= 163

163 - X - Y= W

X= leading team's wins

Y= trailing team's loses

W= magic number

The magic number represents the combination of wins by the leading team and losses by the second-place (or tied) team that would clinch the division title.

The "magic number" is the number of games a team needs to win to win the division.

Hey, look, it's jerry! =(