0 GaGa Lite Presents: Ichiro Posted by The Duke of GaGa |

Ichiro is a baseball player who defies projections. In fact, DMZ at USSMariner wrote an article in the 2010 Mariners Annual discussing how unique Ichiro really is: Bill James' system compares Ichiro to 10 players, 5 of whom played in the period from 1898-1935, with only two, Shannon Stewart and Mickey Rivers, playing in the past half century. Meanwhile, DMZ notes that PECOTA has consistently predicted declines for Ichiro, with a 2009 prediction of .295/.340/.379 (he actually hit .352/.386/.465) and a 2010 prediction of .322/.375/.426. This isn't to pick on PECOTA, as CHONE has him at .311/.344/.408, Bill James says he will slash .319/.365/.407, and Marcel says Ichiro will go .319/.365/.418. DMZ scoffs at these computer systems, and the punchline to his article is that he doesn't see Ichiro slowing down at all in the near future.

Ichiro thus presents a critique of PECOTA, CHONE, Bill James and Marcel. If they consistently predict declines for Ichiro, and he consistently outperforms these predictions, then perhaps we need a new system. This is where GaGa Projections comes in: GaGa Lite does Ichiro! First we have to admit that Ichiro Suzuki is the best dressed 8-bit, Nintendo-based character we have ever seen. In an informal poll, Ichiro beat our Mario, Link, and the Mage from Final Fantasy in both looks and style.

Moving on to baseball, GaGa Lite sees the 2010 version of Ichiro hitting .400/.423/.720. Yes, you heard that right, .400/.423/.720. This may seem high for a player who "only" managed .352/.385/.465 last year and whose career triple slash is .333/.378/.434, but we know our system is right. The computer based systems are highly complex, taking in a number of variables and embarking on the kind of math equations that make string theorists nervous. But, our system is equally complex: we take a weighted average of the past 4 years, then we weigh their college, high school, middle school and Little League performances. We adjust for height, weight, social security number, date of birth and mother's maiden name. And finally, we add in ingredients X and Y, heart and state of mind. What GaGa Projections understands is that Ichiro has spent a number of years playing on bad teams and has become bored. The 2010 season will be different because Ichiro will be un-bored, that the combination of tickles from Griffey, watching King Felix and Cliff Lee pitch, great summer weather and a possible trip to the postseason will energize Ichiro to take it to a whole new level. A lot of people love Ichiro: his parents, his wife, his dog, his teammates, Mariners fans, baseball fans more generally, the Mariners blogosphere...the list goes on. But it's safe to say that out of all these people, GaGa Lite loves Ichiro the most. Who else has the balls say, on the record, that Ichiro will hit .400?

Here's a little video primer to tantalize you as to what Ichiro could do this year, our favorite is his home run at the 52 second mark:

0 Projecting Figgins and Hannahan Posted by The Duke of GaGa |

Fans of the site have been begging us to do some other kind of projection, as they are too excited about the GaGa system to have to wait for us to play out our 162 game season. So, as of right now, we are introducing GaGa Lite, our preseason projections. Instead of being based on the GaGa Projection System's 162 game season, in GaGa Lite, we have put each cyber Mariner through an intense baseball regimen that allows us to estimate how well they will do over the course of the season. The exact nature of this regimen is top secret, so any attempts to pry it out of us will not work. Let's just say that last night we put Chone Figgins and Jack Hannahan through 600 at-bats in our spring training facilities, which are located somewhere between iMovie and Pages in our fantastic and headache-free MacBook Pro. We realize that we just gave free advertising to Apple, but when a company makes such great products, we like to try to find ways to ask them to send us free stuff: hint, hint.

Here are our findings: Chone Figgins will hit .287/.390/.393 and Jack Hannahan will hit .216/.300.330. And for the sake of transparency, we have to admit that we only put Hannahan through 242 at-bats because, first of all, he sucks and we got tired of watching him hit weak grounders to second base, and second, he has a major league attitude problem. You can't even comprehend all the cursing that this guy did, or how weird it was to hear someone go on a cursing tirade while happy 8-bit music is playing in the background.

0 R.B.I. Baseball Presents The GaGa Projection System Posted by The Duke of GaGa |

So it's time to reveal some truths about the GaGa Projection System. While other systems make heavy use of computers to predict future performance, the GaGa system brings together man and machine. I mean, after all, baseball is a game played by men, so any projection that fails to account for the human side of the game is inherently flawed. So how do man and machine come together? We will use the 1987 Nintendo video game R.B.I Baseball, with updated rosters for 2010 (thanks to TecmoTurd for editing the rosters), and by taking control of the Seattle Mariners and playing their entire 162 game schedule, we will find out how the real Seattle Mariners will do. As we all know, what happens in the R.B.I. Baseball world exactly mimics real life. Unfortunately, playing out 162 games will take quite a long time, so we are shooting to complete the season by mid-July. This will allow Mariners fans to rest easy for the second half of the season, they won't be biting their nails or shaking in their boots, instead they will know exactly how the season will turn out.

So we think you are probably wondering about the major assumption in this post: that R.B.I. Baseball (with us at the helm) will correctly predict what happens in real life. How can we trust such a complex process to a 23 year old video game? Well, all you have to do is witness its accuracy as it plays out Game 6 of the 1986 World Series:

0 Welcome. Posted by The Duke of GaGa |

Welcome to GaGa Projections. Following in the footsteps of the sabermetric community and projection systems such as CHONE, CAIRO, and PECOTA, GaGa Projections will project the 2010 contributions of the Seattle Mariners. Why is this system called GaGa Projections? Because I am obsessed with Lady GaGa, that's why. But don't let the name fool you, this is not some pop/dance/bubblegum system. It is hardcore, and will produce arguably* the most advanced and accurate metrics on the internet. While other projections must be run hundreds upon hundreds of times in order to simulate reliability, the GaGa projection system only needs to be run once.

*I hope

In the coming weeks, you will learn more information about the system and statistics will begin pouring in. In the meantime feel free to pinch yourselves, because yes, this really is happening. Fasten your seatbelts and get ready for a trip to Amazing-Land.