What is the difference between a magic number and an elimination number?

Question

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Answer 1

The magic number is a number of wins or loses the competition needs in order to clinch a spot in the standings,usually 1st place or a play off spot-
IE:magic number is 6 for the sox= sox wins+Yankee loses=6,the "Magic"number to secure superiority in the standings

The elimination number is the combined loses and opposition victories before mathematical elimination from a spot in the standings

Answer 2

There really is no difference, other than the side from which you're looking at the number.

In a playoff race in a division or for the wild card, the magic number is the the number of wins by the first place team combined with the number of losses by the team chasing it that will clinch the division or wild card for the first place team.

The elimination number is the exact same number. It's the number that will eliminate the chasing team.

Right now the Cubs magic number over the Brewers is 6. You could look at it two ways. When the number of Cubs wins plus number of Brewers losses reaches 6, the Cubs will clinch the division, but the Brewers will also be eliminated. So the magic number / elimination number is the same, it's just called something different how you look at it.

Answer 3

The "Magic Number" is the difference between the number of games left to play minus the number of games that you are ahead of your closest competitor plus 1. For example, if there are 10 games remaining and your team leads the 2nd place team by 3 games, the magic number would be 8. This would consist of your wins added to your competitor's losses that total the "magic number" 8. Let's say that you win only 5 of the remaining 10 and lose 5. That means that your competitor MUST go 8 and 2 for the remaining 10 games. If he went 7 and 3, your 5 wins plus his 3 losses would meet the "magic number" 8 which gives you the pennant.

The "elimination" number is calculated the same except that you are behind the leader. In other words, in the scenario above, you are the competitor and your elimination number is 8.

Answer 4

The first-place team's Magic Number is same as second-place team's Elimination Number.

Answer 5

The two are related but opposite concepts.

Magic number deals with clinching a play-off spot or division championship. As such, it is a combination of wins by the team to which it applies and losses by the next best team. For example, if Team A is in first place by three games and the second place team has five games left, Team A has a magic number of three.

Elimination number deals with how close a team is to being eliminated from play-off contention. It is a combination of losses by the team to which it applies and wins by the team in the last play-off spot. For example, if Team B is trailing the wild-card leader by one game with six games left, Team B has an elimination number of six.

As the end of a season approaches, one by one, the teams trailing see their elimination number reach zero which means that even if they won all of their remaining games they would not reach the play-off. As the last team in contention reaches an elimination number of zero, the magic number of the team that gets the wild card will also drop down to zero which means that, even if it lost all of its remaining games, it would still be the wild card team.

For the division leaders, they have two magic numbers -- one for getting the wild card and one for winning the division. Papers tend to emphasize the number for winning the division. (There is also a number for clinching the league title and clinching home field in the first round, but those numbers do not get much media attention.)

Answer 6

Magic numbers are good, eliminations numbers are just that... the number until you are eliminated from post season play.

Answer 7

magic number is any number that the team in the lead or team behind them can win or lose (ex. if a teams magic number is 1 even if they doen win and the team behind them loses they still get in)