2018 MLB Home Run Leader Odds

It’s time for baseball bettors and home run aficionados to start doing their homework as oddsmakers have crunched the numbers and opened odds for who will lead Major League Baseball in home runs in 2018 and everyone’s new favorite pair of teammates are at the top of the oddsboard.

Fresh off a league-leading and career-best 59 home runs, new Yankee Giancarlo Stanton is the +375 favorite to lead the bigs in long balls. Swapping Marlins Park for Yankee Stadium should give Stanton the opportunity to hit even more home runs thanks to shorter left- and right-field walls. Also of note for Stanton will be multiple trips to other hitter-friendly ballparks that he didn’t have the luxury of visiting on a frequent basis when playing in the NL East. According to this 2016 article by ESPN, the AL East features four of the top 10 ballparks for hitters, while four of the five NL East parks rank in the bottom half of the league.

the AL East features four of the top 10 hitter-friendly ballparks, while four of the five NL East parks rank in the bottom half of the league.

Entering his second season, Aaron Judge can be found at +600 to lead the league in dingers. Judge was baseball’s breakout star in 2017, cracking 52 home runs to lead the American League. There will be lots of talk of a potential sophomore slump and many “experts” will go into great detail about how teams now have a full season of tape on Judge to analyze. However, teams had five months of tape on Judge going into September, which was his best month of the 2017 season when he hit 15 home runs with a 1.352 OPS, so don’t be swayed by that argument as a reason to devalue the young slugger.

The best bang for your buck on this list might be Joey Gallo of the Texas Rangers at +1500. Gallo smoked 41 home runs in 2017 with an average speed off the bat of 107.61 mph, which was faster than both Stanton and Judge. He was also second to Stanton in ND (no doubt) home runs with 17. The big knock on Gallo, of course, was his 196 strikeouts, but at 24 years old, it’s logical to expect his plate discipline to improve as he gets more experience.

While Bryce Harper will get plenty of attention in his contract year, he’s eclipsed 30 home runs just once in his six seasons and there’s zero value on the potential soon-to-be half-billion-dollar man at +1500. You’re much better off targeting the man who hit the fourth-most home runs last season, Khris Davis of the Oakland A’s at +2500. The overlooked outfielder is no fluke as he’s hit a combined 85 home runs the last two seasons, which makes him very much worth the gamble.

Here’s the complete home run futures oddsboard for the 2018 season: