The Mets offense has the potential to be pretty excellent next year. That next level to ‘really excellent’ depends a lot on Jason Bay. He’s shown some improvement lately, perhaps there were lingering effects of the concussion that he didn’t even realize. Still, he’s been pretty bad overall. I think how well Jason Bay plays the rest of 2011 will go a long way towards how the media feels about the Mets in 2012. I’m proposing a direct relationship between Jason Bay’s home run total through the rest of the season, and the Mets predicted win total in 2012.
He’s got 9 right now. 11 seems a stretch, but if he got to 20 I feel like people would proclaim him ‘back’. I’ll set that as the absolute ceiling, and say it equates to 89 wins. Each home run less than that will be worth 1 win. If he doesn’t hit another, the Mets will be predicted to win 78. If he hits 5 to finish with 14, 83 wins.