Baseball has so many sluggers these days that predicting the season¡¯s home run leader isn¡¯t always the easiest pick.

Entering 2021, Salvador Perez¡¯s career high in homers was 27 in 129 games (twice), and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. had 24 career home runs in 183 games. Then, each went out and hit 48 homers in ¡¯21 to tie for the MLB lead, with Guerrero becoming the third-youngest player to have at least a share of the MLB lead in homers for a season.

That surprise nature just makes predicting the 2022 home run leader even more fun. MLB.com enlisted five writers to pick contenders to be 2022¡¯s Major League home run king.

Here are the picks.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. ¨C 1B, Blue Jays
2021 total: 48

After that introduction above, taking one of the reigning leaders is probably not the best choice, but everything about the 2021 season points to Guerrero leading the Majors in homers again.

Nothing about his 2021 homer prowess was a fluke. Guerrero had a .594 expected slugging percentage, which is based on quality of contact, a figure quite close to his actual .601 slugging percentage. In other words: no excess luck involved. And his stellar plate discipline aided all of this: Guerrero led the Majors with 59 swing/take runs, which quantify that plate awareness. When I think of a prodigious slugger primed to lead the Majors in homers, Guerrero and his 98th-percentile hard-hit rate comes to mind immediately.

¨C Sarah Langs

Eloy Jim¨¦nez ¨C OF, White Sox
2021 total: 10 (55 games)

This is the ultimate redemption pick. I picked Jim¨¦nez in this same exact spot last season ¨C the No. 2 pick in our annual draft. Unfortunately, he ruptured his left pectoral tendon in Spring Training and missed the majority of the regular season. Fully healthy, the reasons for selecting Jim¨¦nez last year remain true this year. He clubbed 31 homers in just 122 games as a rookie in 2019. He maintained that pace with 14 home runs in only 55 games (while increasing his OPS from .828 to .891) in the shortened '20 season. Even after missing four months last year, it took him just 10 games to record a two-homer game -- and he followed it up with a second straight two-homer effort the following night.

All told, he has 55 home runs in just 232 career games. That's an average of 38 homers over a 162-game pace -- and he's still just 25 years old. If he can stay healthy, there's no reason he can't cruise past the 40-homer plateau, especially hitting in the middle of a potent White Sox lineup.

¨C Paul Casella

Mike Trout ¨C CF, Angels
2021 total: 8 HR (36 games)

From 2017-21, no one hit home runs more frequently than Trout when he was healthy. The only trouble is, he¡¯s missed significant time due to injury in four of the last five seasons. In that span, the three-time AL MVP has averaged a home run every 11.7 at-bats, the best home run per at-bat ratio in baseball (Joey Gallo is second, at a homer every 12.5 at-bats).

In 2019, Trout¡¯s HR/AB ratio was one every 10.5 at-bats. That translated into 45 homers in 470 at-bats (136 games). If he had been healthy all season and gotten 600 at-bats, at that rate, he¡¯d have hit 57 homers. Yes, he¡¯s entering his age-30 season and hasn¡¯t played in more than 140 games since 2016, but does anyone really doubt Trout when it comes to anything on a baseball field?

¨C Manny Randhawa

Yordan Alvarez -- DH, Astros
2021 total: 33 HR

This pick was originally going to be Fernando Tatis Jr., but alas, it appears that he will miss too much time with a fractured wrist for even his prodigious talent to overcome. Alvarez is a pretty good Plan B, though. Just 24 years old, the left-handed slugger has popped 61 homers and slugged .577 in his first 233 MLB games, despite missing nearly all of 2020 while having surgery on both knees.

Few in the game can crush the ball like Alvarez. Last season, his hard-hit rate (97th percentile), barrel rate (91st) and expected slugging percentage (95th) all were elite. That power works to all fields, as well, with only 13 of his 35 homers last year (including postseason) being pulled. In other words, ZiPS has good reason to project a 39-homer campaign for Alvarez, its third-highest total now that Tatis is injured. The knees are a lingering concern, but a healthy Alvarez should be a factor in this race.

¨C Andrew Simon

Ronald Acu?a Jr. ¨C OF, Braves
2021 total: 24 HR (82 games)

Even if Atlanta slow-plays Acu?a back from the ACL tear he suffered last July, I¡¯m confident he can make up the difference. Acu?a might have unlocked a new level at the plate before that injury, homering once every 12 at-bats for a 46-homer pace across a 550-at-bat campaign. Behind that torrid homer pace lay video game-level power Statcast metrics: 95th percentile or better in average exit velocity, hard-hit rate, barrel rate and expected slugging. Acu?a¡¯s 108.7 mph average home run exit velocity ranked fourth out of 102 players with at least 20 tracked long balls, and his 416-foot average distance tied Tatis and Shohei Ohtani for fourth in that group -- so nothing he hits is cheap. A career-low strikeout rate last year showed the Braves¡¯ star giving himself more chances to mash, too.

Maybe Acu?a isn¡¯t in the lineup every day to start the year, and maybe that keeps him from achieving the 50-50 season I still think he¡¯ll notch someday. But I¡¯m not forgetting the MVP form Acu?a showed before that fateful July day in Miami, and 50 homers aren¡¯t impossible if he gets red-hot in August and September.

¨C Matt Kelly