And so, if we were to project that Jeffrey Hammonds will hit 25 HRs in 2001, we really have no clue whether that represents something good or bad. So, I think it's time that we throw away all our projections. I mean it. There are many ways that people project performance, and assign fixed values to a player's skills. One of the more popular methods is to run simple three-year averages.
Some people run three-year weighted averages.
And still others run five-year averages of some sort. In the Baseball Forecaster, we run five-year trends, taking into account a variety of leading indicators, but in the end, all we're still doing is playing with a bunch of numbers. A glance at the projections of some other industry touts shows another range of expectation. This player hit 17 HRs in 1998. It is an issue of believability, but if truth be told, there is a fear that any prediction of outlying statistical levels would beg the question of credibility.