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MLB best bets: Who will hit more home runs, Trea Turner or Dansby Swanson?

By Jared Shlensky | Last updated 3/22/23

The World Baseball Classic is officially over and now you can fully commit your baseball focus to the regular season. Sure, there's still another week of spring training games, but it's better to focus on the regular season, specifically future bets.

Caesars Sportsbook has some really cool head-to-head bets you can place. They've got plenty of head-to-head team props you can place under the "regular-season wins" matchup tab, but enough about each team. Instead, let's focus on some individual head-to-head prop bets. They've got them for both pitchers and hitters and for today, we're going to focus on offense, specifically the long ball.

Today's head-to-head prop bet is between Trea Turner and Dansby Swanson. And the bet is who will finish with more regular-season home runs: Turner or Swanson? Swanson is currently the favorite at -130 and Turner is the underdog at +100.

And considering how good Turner was in the WBC, we're surprised the line isn't the same for both shortstops at -110 or -115. Turner led the WBC with five homers and was hands down the best hitter for team USA in the Classic.

Both are on new teams — Turner with the Phillies and Swanson with the Cubs — so it's a little harder to predict who's going to hit more home runs this year. However, Citizens Bank Park is a much more hitter-friendly stadium than Wrigley Field, which is one of the main reasons why we're going with Turner over Swanson.

Since 2020, Citizens Bank Park has been the sixth-most hitter-friendly stadium in baseball while Wrigley Field ranks 17th. That's a pretty big difference. Plus, the Phillies have a better lineup than the Cubs, and it's not all that close. Philly has Kyle Schwarber, Nick Castellanos, JT Realmuto, Rhys Hoskins, and eventually Bryce Harper, once he gets healthy. That's leaps and bounds better than the Cubs' lineup of Ian Happ, Cody Bellinger, Eric Hosmer and Seiya Suzuki.

Yes, Swanson hit four more homers than Turner last year, but that's the only year he's hit more dingers than Turner. Obviously, Turner is older and has been in the league longer, but the sample size is big enough for us to go off.

And don't forget, Swanson was on an Atlanta team that had a ton of elite hitters — Freddie Freeman, Matt Olson, Austin Riley, Ronald Acuna Jr., Ozzie Albies, etc. — on it over the years. That's not the case anymore. It might not happen early in the season, but eventually teams will likely pitch around Swanson to face some of the weaker hitters in the Cubs' lineup. That's something Turner won't have to deal with. And that's a huge advantage for Turner, especially with this bet.

Expect their home run totals to be somewhere in the mid 20s and for the two to be close all year long, but we're still going with Turner. And with Tuner's line at even odds (+100), you should put big money on Turner to finish with more homers than Swanson too.

Our Pick: Trea Turner (+100 via Caesars Sportsbook) to finish with more home runs than Dansby Swanson

Bet $100 to win $100.

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