I think you're operating on hunches and a natural bias toward optimism about your own team. Which I understand, we all do it.
The thing about projections is, assuming they're done by a reputable source, they're truly unbiased. They're not "reliable" because no predictions about baseball are, but they'll be more accurate than those of biased fans.
As I've said before, the team win projections for the Sox the last 3 years were virtually all in the 80-85 range, and they turned out to be close to bang on each time.