I can't help myself.  I'm no longer convinced this is a playoff team I'm convinced they will win the World Series.  Twins have never won the Wild Card and won't win it this year either, but if somehow the Royals or Tigers can stay with us the Twins Wild card magic # is 135

 

The division magic # and the only magic # that matters is 138

There is significant computational science behind a true magic number this far out. It's usually smaller than you think, because if you win most of the games, the other teams will fight among each other and help you toward your goal. Here is a web site that's been doing the calculations for a few years now.

 

http://lyle.smu.edu/~olinick/riot/american_league.html

 

You'll see that the Twins need to win 131 to clinch the division, 120 merely to clinch the postseason berth. (Data as of this morning, it says.)

 

They also compute a perverse version, the minimum number of wins necessary if every other team tanks. At the moment they have 27 for the Twins - as long as they win this many, all hope is not lost, unless any of the other teams in the division win some games needlessly.

 

Cool but geeky. Geeky but cool. Stupid. Your call.

1.2E+02 if you're going geeky, plus it adds a fine gloss of "of course it's a long shot" (which appears to be needed here.) 

 

 

Another way to figure the magic number for clinching is not to calculate one but to calculate four: one vs each division member.

As of now:

vs KC: 137

vs Det: 136

vs CWS: 132

vs Cle: 130

It should be noted that this method isn't perfect. For example, say that the Tigers and White Sox are tied for the lead going into the final three games of the season and the Twins are two games back. Since the Tigers and Sox play each other those three games it would be possible for the Twins to finish ahead of either team but not both.

 

 

Wild card 131

 

True Magic #134

Now THIS is optimism!  How refreshing.

Being 4 games up on the wild card and 1 game behind in the division this is getting more real by the day. Wild card magic # 113 division 119. By the way that wild card # is currently for either the Yankees or rays if one gets hot they just take the division lead and we don't care.

110

It's refreshing to see this thread instead of the reverse magic number threads that have been posted here the last couple years. 

It's been nearly 2 months since this thread has been in play, we sat in playoff position most of that time, but long stretches of below .500 baseball doesn't excite anyone,  right now we sit at 37 with the Rangers looking to make that 36.  I guess we might not win the division.

Again, the Twins have sole possession of the second wild card.