this is stupid. brooks conrad 17 homeruns? how high are you?

I am not really familiar with these projections…but I have read some of the Bill James projections in the past. He is very clear about things…
1) They are not meant to be a crystal ball….but a tool.
2) You can’t predict injuries…
3) Can’t be certain of ABs…due to roster changes, injuries, defense etc. He typically gives someone the benefit of the doubt and gives them more ABs then they will likely get in order to get a better idea of production (ie the larger the sample size the more likely the numbers are to be accurate).

He goes on to say that based on PREVIOUS production, trends, player comparisons, equiv stats etc….that a player would produce around that stat line IF given that many ABs.

In the case of Brooks Conrad it had him hitting 17 hrs in around 400 ABs….right? Did you also see it had him hitting .230 with an OBP around .320? If Conrad got 400 ABs do you really think he couldn’t hit 17hrs? I don’t think that is that far off. Now if he gets 400 abs then the team is in trouble. But they aren’t saying he is going to get 400 ABs.
Keep in mind that younger players are going to have more variation to their projections because there isn’t as much of a track record to base it on. However, with Veterans like Chipper you can see his norms, trends, injury history etc….therefore his projection will be closer to his recent career norms.

I haven’t done the math but if you figure that the average slot in the order gets 3.4 ABs a game…and there are 162 games….so there should be around 5000 ABs per team…per year right. Has anyone gone back and looked to see if the ABs even look close?