{"id":489941,"date":"2026-02-21T12:48:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T12:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/489941\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T12:48:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T12:48:10","slug":"buy-or-sell-shohei-ohtani-and-every-mlb-teams-projected-home-run-leader-for-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/489941\/","title":{"rendered":"Buy or Sell Shohei Ohtani and Every MLB Team’s Projected Home Run Leader for 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Projected Leader: 1B Munetaka Murakami
Projected HR Total: 28
Buy or Sell: Sell\u2014Colson Montgomery (26 HR projection)<\/p>\n

The swing-and-miss concerns are real with Japanese League star Munetaka Murakami, but so is the power, and a 30-homer debut is not out of the question. That said, only Kyle Schwarber (26), Shohei Ohtani (23), Cal Raleigh (22) and Junior Caminero (22) had more home runs during the second half last season than the 21 slugged by rookie Colson Montgomery.<\/p>\n

Projected Leader: 3B Jos\u00e9 Ram\u00edrez
Projected HR Total: 28
Buy or Sell: Buy<\/p>\n

While there was a 5.4-WAR gap in their overall value, Kyle Manzardo only hit three fewer home runs than Jos\u00e9 Ram\u00edrez did last year with a 27-homer, 70-RBI campaign, so he’s worth keeping an eye on. However, J-Ram has led the Guardians in home runs six years in a row, so betting against him doing it again seems unwise.<\/p>\n

Projected Leader: 1B Spencer Torkelson
Projected HR Total: 31
Buy or Sell: Sell\u2014Kerry Carpenter (25 HR projection)<\/p>\n

Consider the following context for the Tigers home run leaders a year ago:<\/p>\n

Riley Greene: 655 PA, 36 HR, 18.2 PA per HR
Spencer Torkelson: 649 PA, 31 HR, 20.9 PA per HR
Kerry Carpenter: 464 PA, 26 HR, 17.8 PA per HR<\/p>\n

With a bit more exposure to left-handed pitching (only 63 PA) and a clean bill of health (missed 22 games with hamstring strain), Carpenter is more than capable of pacing the club in homers in 2026.<\/p>\n

Projected Leader: SS Bobby Witt Jr.
Projected HR Total: 28
Buy or Sell: Sell\u2014Vinnie Pasquantino (27 HR projection)<\/p>\n

There is no question Bobby Witt Jr. is the face of the franchise and the best all-around player on the Royals roster, but he is not a slam dunk for a 30-homer season, evidenced by his 23 long balls that trailed Vinnie Pasquantino (32) and Salvador Perez (30) in 2025. “Pasquatch” was especially good during the second half, logging an .845 OPS with 17 home runs in 64 games.<\/p>\n

Projected Leader: OF Byron Buxton
Projected HR Total: 28
Buy or Sell: Sell\u2014Matt Wallner (22 HR projection)<\/p>\n

With a strong 6’4″, 220-pound frame and elite bat speed that ranked in the 96th percentile<\/a> last season, Matt Wallner is a 30-homer season waiting to happen, and he has actually averaged 30 home runs per 162 games across his four seasons in the big leagues. Last year was the first time Byron Buxton topped 110 games played since 2017, so while he has top-tier power, health remains an ongoing question mark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Projected Leader: 1B Munetaka MurakamiProjected HR Total: 28Buy or Sell: Sell\u2014Colson Montgomery (26 HR projection) The swing-and-miss concerns…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489942,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-489941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}