Friday, September 2, 2016

13

Cubs win today and St. Louis lost. Number drops twice in a day!  Lester had another great game.  Tomorrow, Giants @ Cubs. First pitch 1:20pm. 



NL Central Standings
Team        W   L    PCT    GB
Cubs       87  47   .649    --
Cards      70  63   .526  16.5
Pirates    67  65   .508  19.0

Just for kicks...

Playoff Berth Magic Number

11



Home Field Advantage Magic Number

21


8 comments :

Unknown said...

They could actually clinch for my birthday that would be great!

Anonymous said...

Typo in the standings, Pirates record should read 67-65, not 67-68.

Anonymous said...

This is a dream season. Each game leaves you breathless and expectations that every game can bevwon.

Mister Pickles said...

Thanks for noticing the typo on the Pirates record. It's been corrected.

Chicagoan TX Veteran said...

If the Cubs and Nationals tie in the end with the same numbers, would the Cubs still not have the home field advantage since they beat the Nationals 5 games to their two in head to head competitions? I ask this for the magic number calculations for home field advantage

Chicagoan TX Veteran said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Matt N said...

Projecting date is the 17th?

Steve E said...


I apologize if this seems wonky, but the Cubs magic number as of the completion of play on 9/2 for the wild card is only 10. It gears off the Mets currently because of the games remaining between the Pirates and Cards. For the Pirates with 65 losses to be the team that knock the Cubs out of the WC it would mean that the Cards also passed the Cubs for the division. Since they play 6 times, if the Pirates won them all the Cards would have 69 losses and obviously wouldn't win the division.

The WC scenario that gears off Pittsburgh at 65 losses today would require minimization of the number of losses the worst record between the Cards and Pirates have - that scenario is that the Pirates win 4 of the six game so that both have 67 losses. This means that the Mets at 66 losses are the non-division leading team with the second best record to be considered (although in that case the Cubs would win the division with 66 losses or a magic number of 9 meaning it is not the scenario with the highest Cub magic number). To maximize the magic number, the Cards or Pirates would need to win at least 97 games meaning the other could not win more than 93.

For example, if the Cards go undefeated against everyone except Pittsburgh and split 4-2 with them, the Giants and Mets win all of their remaining games, and Pitt win all of their non SL games the records look like:

Cards 97-65
Me 96-66
SF 100-62
Pitt 93-69

In this case, the Cubs clinch a WC spot with 97 wins. The other option is for Pittsburgh to go undefeated in which case the best possible records are:

Pitt 97-65
Mets 96-66
SF 100-62
Cards 93-69

This means that 97 wins guarantees the Cubs a Wild Card bid even if Pittsburgh goes undefeated.

In short, there is no scenario where 97 wins does not have the Cubs in the playoffs as at least a Wild Card, so their current magic number is at 10 today. I have been waiting for "the year" for over 70 years and they can't clinch soon enough for me. Hope this makes sense. Thanks.