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March 29, 2014
A Bold DMN Prediction
The Dallas Morning News staff have offered their predictions on the upcoming season.
One prediction is "Wins needed to win AL West." I read this as the minimum number of wins; that is, if "wins needed" is 90, some other team in the division has finished with 89. If that's not the case, the prediction should have been titled "Wins by division winner."
Rick Gosellin selected 97 wins (and Oakland as West champion). He also didn't select any AL West teams as wild cards.
Thus, the math dictates:
1) Some AL West team other than Oakland will win 96 games and NOT be a wild card.
2) Both wild cards (from outside the West) MUST have more than 96 wins (barring ties), because they have to exceed the AL West's tough-luck 96-game winner.
3) At least one division winner from the Central or East, perhaps both, MUST have more than 97 wins (specifically, more than whatever the wild card teams have).
An example, using Gosslin's other predictions:
AL West:
Oakland 97-65 (div),
Texas 96-66 (nothing)
AL Central
Detroit 90-72 (div)
AL East:
New York 98-64 (div),
Tampa Bay 97-65 (wc),
Boston 97-65 (wc)
So, Gosselin is predicting (unintentionally, I assume) that no fewer than five AL teams will win at least 96 games. That's a bold prediction.
Posted by Lucas at March 29, 2014 12:11 PM