Predicting home run totals and the race to be crowned Home Run King in a given season heavily depends on one factor that won’t be known until the season begins: How will the baseball play this year?
Since Major League Baseball first cracked the 5,000-home run mark during the 2016 season, big fly rates have fluctuated by more than 5% every subsequent year. Thanks to a lively baseball, 2019 was the significant outlier, dwarfing every other comparable season by 10% or more with a total of 6,776 homers.
Ten players went yard 40+ times that year, the most since 2006, nearly double the total in each season from 2021-24. Looking at 2024, hitters posted the second-lowest total of home runs since 2016, and both of the seasons with the fewest long balls hit in the last nine years occurred since 2022.
While the league-wide rate of home runs has come back down to earth since 2019, several players have cemented themselves as annual threats to lead their peers in power. Of the top 200 individual home run seasons in MLB history, Aaron Judge has posted the seventh and tenth-best performances over the last three years.
The Yankee outfielder has posted an 8.45% home run rate since 2022 and has a career rate of 7.3%. For comparison, Barry Bonds homered in 6% of his plate appearances. Judge is entering his age-33 season and is again favored to lead baseball in big flies in 2025.
Shohei Ohtani has increased his home run total by ten each season since 2022. His 54 long balls in 2024 were the most in the National League by 15, supported by an NL-best 731 plate appearances translating to a 7.4% homer clip.
Ohtani is planning to be available as a pitcher again this season if his throwing ramp-up goes well, which could deflate his potential if the Dodgers limit his PAs on throwing days, which remains to be seen. Either way, he’s the NL’s best hope to unseat Judge.
Philadelphia’s Kyle Schwarber bashed 93 home runs from 2022-23 and saw a slight decline to 38 in 2024 while leading the National League in walks. He hits at the top of the Phillies lineup and has played 150+ games every season since joining the team.
His batting average jumped 51 points from 2023-24, correlating with a 5% drop in his flyball rate and likely the drop in home runs from the prior two years.
Mets slugger Pete Alonso has not come close to the 53 big flies he posted as a rookie in 2019, finishing with 34 in 2024 and erasing an upward trend from the two years before.
Astros outfielder Yordan Alvarez has battled nagging injuries for several years, leading to respectable home run numbers (30+ annually since 2021). Still, the three-time All-Star must play 150+ games to compete in this race.
Fernando Tatis Jr. led baseball in home run rate in 2021, going yard 42 times after inking a $340M contract with San Diego that offseason. The young star turned 26 in January and is seeking to reclaim that level of performance after suspension and injuries derailed his 2022-24 seasons.
His countryman Juan Soto smacked a career-high 41 long balls in 2024 with the Yankees, but it’s hard to see him reaching the 40-homer plateau again in a bigger ballpark this year unless he sacrifices some of that world-class patience at the dish.
Finally, Atlanta first baseman Matt Olson cannot be left out of this discussion. Along with Judge and Ohtani, Olson is the only player to reach 50 taters in the 2020s but regressed in 2024 after that world-beating season. 2025 will go a long way toward determining whether that season was a major outlier or an indication of what Olson is continually capable of.
Aaron Judge +400 (DraftKings)
Matt Olson +3000 (DraftKings/FanDuel)
Judge’s best odds available can be found at DraftKings, and there’s still value to be had on the favorite at this number if he can play in 150+ games again in 2025.
Although Judge’s numbers could be impacted by the loss of Soto’s protection behind him in the order, New York hopes they’ve done that in the aggregate with the addition of Cody Bellinger and Paul Goldschmidt.
For Olson, it’s a matter of make or break. We’ve seen him lead the big leagues in home runs before, and if the Braves lineup achieves full health by May with Austin Riley and Ronald Acuña Jr. staying on the field, it could propel Olson to another stratospheric season. At 30-1, it’s worth the risk.