he hit 43 home runs as a 22 year old in his first crack at the advanced minor leagues (howard hit 46 in the same stage of his minor league career, but was 2 years older). adjusting for for diminished offensive environment, it's quite reasonable to expect that bryant in his prime will be among the league leaders in home runs, just as howard was during his prime. You are mistaking "hope" and "expect." The offensive environment is part of the reason we expect Bryant's BA to be fairly low. You're high-end, survivorship bias comp still just had a .265 career average at a time when that was the roughly the MLB average, which is down to .250 now. howard's batting average in his prime was not league average. his career average is .265, but i think we can probably hope that bryant won't blow out his achilles at age 30 and then become a terrible hitter who has no idea how to hit same-side pitching.