MLB Projected Season Home Run Odds For 2024
Aaron Judge Should Blow Past His Over
Spring Training is in full swing, pun intended, and amazingly, regular season action is only two weeks away. The Dodgers play the Padres in South Korea on March 20, and the rest of MLB will open up around a week later.
Now is a good time to really assess not only futures bets for the upcoming season but also season-long stats and awards odds as well. MLB player home run projections are out and while there are a ton of options on the board, there are some players who provide especially good value.
It’s always a bit fickle to take home run over/under bets because so much depends on player health and other factors that you can’t account for or predict before the season.
What you can do is look at the MLB home run leaders from a season ago, assess their current health status and determine if what their team did in the offseason will help them hit more dingers or, in the alternative, depress their totals.
Let’s check out some big names on the home run over/under list and break down whether you should expect them to hit the over on their home run totals or if they look like they’ll have a down year relative to expectations.
Aaron Judge: 44.5 home runs (-120 over / -110 under)
Judge is the obvious top over candidate. He hit 37 home runs last season — a year after smacking an AL-record 62 longballs — and did so in just 106 MLB games with a rather-subpar Yankees lineup surrounding him. Now, he’s healthy and will have former MVP Juan Soto as lineup protection in home-run-friendly Yankee Stadium.
The question with Judge is always how much he’ll be able to play. If Judge can be on the field for 120+ games, then it feels like a guarantee that he’ll get to at least 45 home runs.
The MLB player home run projections couldn’t make Judge’s number much higher than that, but when he is operating at full throttle, 50 is entirely in range. The over is pretty juiced, understandably, but even at -120 it’s a great bet to take.
Austin Riley: 35.5 home runs (-115 over / -115 under)
Riley was a key part of the Braves’ historic offense last season, hitting 37 home runs a year after going deep 38 times. The third baseman has only missed eight games total over the past three seasons and is as consistent as they come at the plate.
So, on paper, a smart expert pick would be to take his over at 35.5 because he has eclipsed that figure two years in a row (and was only a few home runs short in 2021).
It would be a bit optimistic to expect him to stay healthy for pretty much the entire season yet again. However, at some point, players are who they are and Riley just might be a durable player who hits 35+ home runs a year.
With that kind of profile, his over is a very safe pick. He also benefits from having the most lineup protection in the Majors, which always helps.
Max Muncy: 26.5 home runs (-115 over / -115 under)
While Muncy’s seasons always seem to take a weird shape, he usually ends up in a similar place: Right around 35 home runs, a ton of strikeouts, and a question about what defensive position he’ll mostly play next year.
After a rough start in 2023, Muncy hit 36 homers and drove in 105 RBIs as he returned to form after a pretty disappointing 2022 campaign.
The question right now for Muncy is how the Dodgers’ addition of Shohei Ohtani affects his playing time. Ohtani is a full-time DH for the foreseeable future, which means that Muncy basically has to play third base if he’s going to be in the lineup.
His defensive numbers from 2023 at the hot corner were less than promising, and if they continue to decline, Dave Roberts will have some tough decisions to make.
That uncertainty is why Muncy’s MLB player home run projection is as low as it is despite him hitting 35 and 36 home runs in four of his past six seasons. There is risk here, but at 26.5, Muncy’s over is excellent value.
Rafael Devers: 33.5 home runs (-115 over / -115 under)
The story for Devers is a simple one: He’s awesome, but the rest of his MLB team is terrible (and he has made his thoughts on Boston’s roster). So, Devers just isn’t going to get much help as he tries to lead this Red Sox team back to respectability.
He had a great 2023 season — 33 home runs, 100 RBIs, 126 OPS+ — and wouldn’t need to do much more to reach his home run over. However, he has only surpassed 33 home runs once in his career when, in 2021, he hit 38 dingers, his most home runs in a season.
This over/under is a tough call. Devers is still one of the best players in baseball, but he isn’t necessarily an enormous power player. He’ll probably end up right around 33.5.
Pete Alonso: 42.5 home runs (-115 over / -115 under)
Alonso in a contract year? The over is a very smart choice. Alonso has yet to match his incredible rookie season 53-homer output but he did whack 46 dingers in the Mets’ disastrous 2023 season after hitting 40 in 2022. He’s a durable player who will be, at the very least, in the ballpark of 43 home runs in 2024.
It helps that he’s a pending free agent. All signs indicate that he’ll hit the open market after the MLB season and would command a sizable sum if he has another big year. That typically serves as a huge motivating factor for MLB players, and Alonso should be no different. His over at -115 is a good take.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr.: 33.5 home runs (-115 over / -115 under)
Vladdy’s performance has dipped in each of the past two seasons from his 2021 MVP runner-up campaign in which he led the Majors with 48 home runs and posted a 1.002 OPS. He still managed to hit 26 home runs last year but the peripheral numbers weren’t particularly promising.
His over/under is expecting a sizable bounceback but it might be too ambitious. He’s not an unknown quantity by any means, but it’s difficult to assume an eight-homer bump to go with perfect health while on a Toronto team that basically just swapped out Matt Chapman for Justin Turner and will likely lose Brandon Belt. The under may be the play here.
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