Joe Posnanski Posted by The Duke of GaGa |

The GaGa Projection System has been on Spring Break and therefore we have not posted in quite a while. We won't get into the details, but let's just say that we booked a trip to Cabo, and somehow ended up in arctic Canada. And our suitcases were full of swim trunks and spray-tan. Ouch!

Friend of the blog Joe Posnanski just wrote something about Johnny Damon, only it turns out that it wasn't about Damon, it was about the correlation between hits, getting on base, home runs, etc. and wins. What he finds is incredibly interesting: the team that out-hits its opponent wins about 80% of the time. The team that gets on base wins almost 83% of the time. And the team that hits the most home runs wins about 76% of the time. So what does this mean? First his methodology: Well we can't really say that much about Posnanski's methodology except that we trust him whole-heartedly (Joe, just tell us what you need and we'll give it to you. What? My wife? Ok, I'll send her on a plane ASAP). And now to his numbers: he seems to confirm what the saber-geeks have been telling us all along: home runs aren't the only way to manufacture runs. And how does this relate to the Mariners? Baseball "analysts" have been on their case for a while now about not bringing in a power hitter like Jason Bay. The Mariners front office and blogosphere have been saying all along that there are multiple ways to construct a lineup and score runs. What the Mariners have done, in bringing in guys like Figgins and Bradley, who can hit and get on base, can be just as valuable (or even more valuable) as breaking the bank for a guy like Bay.

So, we are about to embark on our 162 game projection season, let's see how Posnanski's findings translate into our RBI season. Any guesses on how many wins the M's will end up with? We're hoping for 132!

http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2010/03/15/johnny-damon-detroit/