document: Baseball , optimization , and the World Wide Web The competition for baseball play-off spots-the fabled pennant race-is one of the most closely watched American sports traditions . While play-off race statistics , such as games back and magic number , are informative , they are overly conservative and do not account for the remaining schedule of games . Using optimization techniques , one can model schedule effects explicitly and determine precisely when a team has secured a play-off spot or has been eliminated from contention . The RIOT Baseball Play-off Races Web site developed at the University of California , Berkeley , provides automatic updates of new , optimization-based play-off race statistics each day of the major league baseball season . In developing the site , we found that we could determine the first-place elimination status of all teams in a division using a single linear-programming formulation , since a minimum win threshold for teams finishing in first place applies to all teams in a division . We identified a similar -LRB- but weaker -RRB- result for the problem of play-off elimination with wildcard teams
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