Why are the M's winning?

Throughout the year I've constantly heard doubts about how the Mariner's have managed to play this well throughout this year. People have said that we are "playing above our heads" and that we will "fade". Well it's 3/4 of the way through the season now and the Mariners still haven't "faded" and a lot of people still seem to think that the Mariner's aren't really this good. A lot has been made of the formulas that show that the Mariner's are indeed outperforming what the stats point to as their probable record at this point in the season. According to The Hardball Times the Mariners should currently be 65-60 instead of 72-53, pointing out that we have currently won 7 more games than expected. Well anybody who has read some of my posts on the myspace groups will know what I think of stats as a predictor of what will actually happen at any given point in time. Personally I believe that baseball has too many subjective human factors that affect it's play to be able to try and predict what will happen on any give day through stats that try and break the game down objectively. However, in this case I will offer you some stats that support points as to why the Mariners may be "playing above their heads".

The first one I am going to talk about is simple and any moron can calculate it and that is the fact that our entire lineup has the ability to drive in runs. This is very simple to see by the fact that our entire starting lineup now has over 50 RBIs. This is the first time this has happened in Mariner history and I'm willing to ponder a guess that this isn't all too common in MLB history (I welcome people to prove that wrong since that is just an extrapolation I made myself with common sense). Here is the Mariner's normal lineup and their current RBI totals:

Ichiro Suzuki 53 RBI
Jose Vidro 51 RBI
Jose Guillen 79 RBI
Raul Ibanez 83 RBI
Adrian Beltre 75 RBI
Richie Sexson 62 RBI
Kenji Johjima 51 RBI
Jose Lopez 52 RBI
Yuniesky Betancourt 51 RBI

Now say what you want about these stats but I'm going to give you my opinion as to what it means. Simply the fact that our entire lineup has over 50 RBIs points to the fact that anybody in our lineup can produce runs and that over the course of the season any time one of our big boppers, who are supposed to produce throughout the season, has been in a slump they have been picked up by the rest of the guys in our lineup. Couple this with the fact that no matter who is up late in a game they are very capable of knocking in critical runs and you get a winning team that could be playing better than their stats point to.

The second thing I'm going to talk about is a combination of things and isn't quite as simple but they are all offense related. Now, anybody who has watched the M's on a regular basis this year will know that they are aggressive at the plate and don't draw many walks. In fact the M's are last in the AL in walks by quite a margin. However, their aggressiveness has had other benefits. They are second in batting average at .288, which isn't a very telling stat. However, I will point to two other stats that could point to how the M's offense has kept them playing well and winning at a rate greater than expected. The first is that they are third in the AL in BA with RISP at .286 which essentially says that with their aggressiveness at the plate they are getting hits when it is needed to score runs. The second is that they are tied for second in the AL in BABIP (Batting Average on Balls In Play) at .312. This is a very telling stat because we already know that the Mariners are aggressive at the plate and put the ball in play. However, this stat tells us that this aggressiveness is paying off because when they hit the ball in play they are getting hits at a more than acceptable rate. So their aggressiveness is not going for naught because they are batting at a high clip when they use it to put the ball in play. So essentially despite a lack of implied plate discipline for the Mariners they are using this aggressiveness to fuel their offense to be among the tops in the AL. They have production throughout their lineup and these stats could very well be reason's why. Aggressiveness is good as long as it doesn't come back and blow up in your face and that has yet to happen with the Mariners. So far their aggressiveness has produced an offense that is scoring a lot of runs and is helping them to continue to win games despite predictions of an impending "regression to the mean".

I offer these things on the offensive side of the ball along with an improved starting rotation, amazing young bullpen and very good defense as things that will support this offense on the way and lead to W's that the stats otherwise wouldn't have brought out. I welcome your opinions...Tell me I'm a god who is the smartest guy on earth. Tell me I'm an idiot who doesn't know what I'm talking about. However, this is what I've extrapolated from basic stats as to why this team is doing so well this year even when people still can't seem to accept it.