MLB has magic numbers, now learn the tragic numbers facing its worst teams

The calendar has flipped to September, which means it's officially magic number season across MLB — a magical few weeks spent frantically refreshing the standings and counting down the days until your team has punched its ticket to the postseason.

But of course, that's only half of the September story. For each fan base celebrating a trip to October, there's another who has to say goodbye to a months-long dream. For every magic number, there's a tragic number — the one baseball statistic you hope to never have to familiarize yourself with. Alas, a losing season comes for us all every now and then (well, fine, maybe not the Los Angeles Dodgers); here's everything to know about the saddest two words in baseball.

What is an MLB tragic number?

A tragic number is pretty simple: Whereas a team's magic number is the combined number of wins and rival losses that would clinch a given race, a tragic number is the combined number of leader wins and chaser losses that would mathematically eliminate the chaser from playoff consideration.

If your magic number reaches zero, it means you've punched your ticket. If your tragic number reaches zero, it means you've been eliminated from the race in question — whether it's for a division or for a Wild Card spot.

For example: Let's say a division leader is sitting at 90-69 with control of the head-to-head tie breaker with just three games remaining, while the team in second place is at 88-71. Because the second-place team can finish no better than 91-71, the first-place team just has to get to 91 wins to clinch — meaning their magic number is 1. And because one team's magic number is another team's tragic number, the second-place team's tragic number is also 1.

How is a magic number different from a tragic number?

Again, they're the inverse of one another. A magic number refers to how many combined wins and rival losses a team needs to secure a playoff spot (or a division title). A tragic number refers to how many losses and rival wins would eliminate a team from consideration for a playoff spot (or a division title). If you see a team's magic number in the standings, it means that's also the tragic number of the closest team chasing them.

Magic numbers become all the rage this team of year as fan bases count down the wins (and losses) to October. But for the less fortunate fans among us, it's tragic number season — and the process of elimination has already begun for MLB's bottom-feeders.

Which MLB teams are eliminated from playoff contention already?

The month of September has barely begun, but we've already got our first elimination: The Colorado Rockies cannot mathematically make the playoffs this year, even if they were to win all of their remaining games and every team ahead of them in the NL standings lost all of theirs. In reality, the Rockies were eliminated from postseason consideration from pretty much the moment this season began; now, however, it's officially official.

And soon they won't be the only ones. As the number of remaining regular-season games dwindles, so too do the tragic numbers of teams toward the bottom of the standings. Here's where the bottom third of MLB stands entering play on Friday, Sept. 4.

Next up for elimination will almost certainly be the Giants, Angels or A's, the only teams along with Colorado that have yet to reach 60 wins on the season. San Francisco and L.A. each have tragic numbers of six, meaning any combination of six losses or six wins by the teams currently occupying the No. 6 seed in the AL and NL brackets will eliminate them from playoff consideration.

The Mets, Royals, Nationals and Reds are still holding on in double-digits, although it seems like more a matter of when rather than if. Then we have teams like the Tigers, Mariners, Cardinals, Marlins and Pirates, all of which have tragic numbers in the high teens — still a path to the playoffs, but a narrowing one.

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