2022 MLB Home Run leader predictions

Baseball has so many sluggers these days that predicting the season’s property operate leader is not usually the easiest choose.

That shock mother nature just will make predicting the 2022 residence run chief even far more entertaining. MLB.com enlisted five writers to choose contenders to be 2022’s Important League property run king.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. – 1B, Blue Jays
2021 total: 48

Immediately after that introduction earlier mentioned, having a single of the reigning leaders is almost certainly not the ideal decision, but everything about the 2021 season factors to Guerrero top the Majors in homers again.

Practically nothing about his 2021 homer prowess was a fluke. Guerrero had a .594 expected slugging share, which is dependent on good quality of contact, a determine quite close to his actual .601 slugging share. In other text: no excess luck included. And his stellar plate discipline aided all of this: Guerrero led the Majors with 59 swing/take operates, which quantify that plate consciousness. When I consider of a prodigious slugger primed to guide the Majors in homers, Guerrero and his 98th-percentile hard-strike level comes to thoughts straight away.

Eloy Jiménez – OF, White Sox
2021 total: 10 (55 online games)

This is the supreme redemption decide on. I picked Jiménez in this same specific location previous period – the No. 2 choose in our annual draft. Regrettably, he ruptured his still left pectoral tendon in Spring Education and skipped the vast majority of the typical period. Completely balanced, the reasons for selecting Jiménez past 12 months continue to be accurate this 12 months. He clubbed 31 homers in just 122 online games as a rookie in 2019. He taken care of that rate with 14 dwelling operates in only 55 game titles (although expanding his OPS from .828 to .891) in the shortened ’20 period. Even soon after missing four months previous 12 months, it took him just 10 game titles to report a two-homer match — and he adopted it up with a second straight two-homer exertion the next night time.

All informed, he has 55 property runs in just 232 job online games. That is an common of 38 homers in excess of a 162-video game pace — and he’s even now just 25 decades old. If he can keep balanced, you will find no purpose he are unable to cruise earlier the 40-homer plateau, particularly hitting in the center of a strong White Sox lineup.

Mike Trout – CF, Angels
2021 total: 8 HR (36 game titles)

From 2017-21, no one strike dwelling operates extra often than Trout when he was healthful. The only trouble is, he’s missed major time thanks to personal injury in four of the final five seasons. In that span, the a few-time AL MVP has averaged a property operate every 11.7 at-bats, the ideal home run per at-bat ratio in baseball (Joey Gallo is second, at a homer just about every 12.5 at-bats).

In 2019, Trout’s HR/AB ratio was one particular every 10.5 at-bats. That translated into 45 homers in 470 at-bats (136 game titles). If he had been healthy all period and gotten 600 at-bats, at that price, he’d have hit 57 homers. Certainly, he’s entering his age-30 year and hasn’t performed in more than 140 games since 2016, but does anybody definitely doubt Trout when it arrives to something on a baseball area?

Yordan Alvarez — DH, Astros
2021 complete: 33 HR

This pick was initially going to be Fernando Tatis Jr., but alas, it seems that he will pass up too a great deal time with a fractured wrist for even his prodigious expertise to overcome. Alvarez is a really great Strategy B, although. Just 24 yrs aged, the still left-handed slugger has popped 61 homers and slugged .577 in his initially 233 MLB games, irrespective of lacking approximately all of 2020 while acquiring operation on the two knees.

Several in the game can crush the ball like Alvarez. Previous time, his tricky-strike price (97th percentile), barrel level (91st) and expected slugging proportion (95th) all ended up elite. That power functions to all fields, as well, with only 13 of his 35 homers final 12 months (which include postseason) currently being pulled. In other words, ZiPS has superior reason to task a 39-homer marketing campaign for Alvarez, its 3rd-maximum full now that Tatis is wounded. The knees are a lingering worry, but a healthier Alvarez ought to be a component in this race.

Ronald Acuña Jr. – OF, Braves
2021 total: 24 HR (82 game titles)

Even if Atlanta slow-performs Acuña back again from the ACL tear he suffered very last July, I’m confident he can make up the big difference. Acuña could possibly have unlocked a new stage at the plate right before that injury, homering at the time each and every 12 at-bats for a 46-homer speed throughout a 550-at-bat marketing campaign. Guiding that torrid homer speed lay online video sport-level power Statcast metrics: 95th percentile or superior in regular exit velocity, tricky-strike price, barrel charge and predicted slugging. Acuña’s 108.7 mph average property run exit velocity rated fourth out of 102 players with at minimum 20 tracked extensive balls, and his 416-foot regular distance tied Tatis and Shohei Ohtani for fourth in that group — so nothing he hits is low cost. A profession-very low strikeout charge final yr confirmed the Braves’ star supplying himself extra likelihood to mash, also.

It’s possible Acuña isn’t in the lineup every day to get started the yr, and it’s possible that keeps him from achieving the 50-50 year I nonetheless assume he’ll notch sometime. But I’m not forgetting the MVP kind Acuña confirmed just before that fateful July working day in Miami, and 50 homers are not impossible if he will get pink-scorching in August and September.