2025 Home Run Derby Preview
Looking at the eight home run derby participants and digging into the data to make some guesses at what will go down tonight.
I wrote this preview last year. And since then, there has not been a single day I’ve lived without some stranger approaching me on the street or at the store and asking me if I’m going to write it again this year. The demand for this Home Run Derby preview has been like nothing I’ve ever seen before. People call me the home run derby preview guy now.
I’ll spare you the beginning part where I get real nostalgic about the home run derby. I did that last year, so you can click the link at the beginning of this if you’re desperate to re-read my personal past emotions and feelings about this event.
The pick last year was wrong. I ended up going with Gunnar Henderson, and he did not come close to winning. Teoscar Hernandez took it down last year.
But I have learned a lot from Twitter fake handicapper bros over the year. And the most important lesson is this: when you get something wrong, you just tell people that your process was good and it just didn’t work out.
That’s obviously what happened last year. I had the perfect analysis, perfect data dissection, and perfect prediction. The only problem was being horribly wrong. And that’s a minor problem, anyways. We’re all going to die someday, and when we do, we cannot take the money that we gambled away on 2025 Gunnar Henderson with us. So in some sense, it’s like we didn’t lose anything at all.
I think this year’s derby is as good as I’ve seen. The list of hitters is great. Here it is, and I’ll give you those odds just so you can see what is somewhat expected to happen.
→ Cal Raleigh +295
→ Oneil Cruz +330
→ James Wood +450
→ Matt Olson +800
→ Brent Rooker +850
→ Byron Buxton +950
→ Jazz Chisholm Jr. +1100
→ Junior Caminero +1200
One thing is made clear to me here. Betting lines are quite often not about what the sports book thinks will happen; they are about what they think the people will do with their money. I guess you could say that’s always the case, it’s just that in most cases those two things align.
I doubt there’s any real way to predict Home Run Derby’s accurately. There isn’t some algorithmic formula that gets you to a nice rate of picking the winner accurately. Maybe there could be, but we don’t have enough data on the thing to even attempt it so these things only happen once per year.
So these gambling lines are simply about where they think the bettors will be putting their money. I could be wrong about this stuff, but that’s not what we’re going with.
It’s the only reason for Cal Raleigh to be +295, at least in my mind. And we’ll explore that as we go on.
The Park
We’re in Truist Park in Atlanta tonight. Here are the dimensions:
There’s nothing dramatic here, but you see lefties have ten more feet to work with. I looked at home run per barrel rates since 2023 for visiting teams and found this:
→ Left Handed Hitters: 43.4%
→ Right Handed Hitters: 58.8%
That’s a big difference. Those ten feet have mattered quite a bit. You have to think that things are a bit different in a derby situation where there won’t be many lightly hit fly balls. Nobody here is just trying to hit the ball into play, they’re aiming for the 20th row. But it’s not insigificant, either. And I think you see that baked into the betting lines. The four biggest favorites are all left handed (or a switch hitter in Raleigh’s case).
Let’s get to our data.
Thoughts & Analysis
Junior Caminero
My first reaction was that Junior Caminero was hugely mispriced. And I still think it’s crazy that he’s the longshot. He has such easy swing speed, as you can see there with his protective bat speed being the highest of the bunch.
The hang up probably has something to do with stamina. At 6’1’’, he’s one of the smaller frames in the contest. He also has the perceived disadvantage of being right-handed.
The first version of this post said Caminero weighs 160 pounds, which is what a quick Google search tells you if you search it. But that was obviously wrong and I was stupid to believe that. He’s 220 pounds.
I like Caminero at +1300 a lot, but I can’t help but thinking they know something that I don’t. Given that he’s a smaller guy without a ton of experience in the Majors and the right-handedness thing working against him, I’m not going to make him my pick. But if you’re spreading your money around on this, I think it would be foolish not to grab some +1300 given the elite bat speed this guy has.
Fades
I’m going to keep giving you the same table so you don’t have to scroll a bunch.
Cal Raleigh is out for me. He can win it, of course, but there’s no doubt in my mind (maybe there should be I guess, but there’s not) that him being at +295 is just about him being the big name in people’s minds. He’s the league leader in homers, and people will think that matters here.
It’s a situation where you just fade the most expensive prices. Let’s take a look at these implied percentage chances of winning.
Give me that sum:
114%? What? Isn’t there only a 100% chance that somebody wins this thing? That’s 14% JUICE. And juice has a lot of sugar in it. I got my kids apple juice at this pizza place this weekend and the carton was like ZERO GRAMS ADDED SUGAR but yeah the juice had 21 grams of sugar in it. They just didn’t add any extra. Thanks, juice company. But DraftKings has lots of grams of added sugar here. But hey, it’s two points less than what I added up last year.
I think it’s foolish to take the +295 on Raleigh. It’s hard to take any favorite in a largely random contest like this, but with Raleigh I just really don’t see it. The other easy fade for me is Jazz Chisholm, even at the +1100. I’m confused why he’s even in it. He has not had a huge first half, he’s never been known as a big-time power hitter, he doesn’t light up the exit velocity leaderboard. He’s a great athlete and a great baseball player, but he’s not a home run derby guy. And he’s the reddest of them all on the data table.
You can say a lot of the same about Byron Buxton. He’s far from an EV hero, he’s right handed, he’s a [relatively] small guy, and he’s never done this before. None of that stops him from hitting some absolute nukes. I mean the guy has hit some far, far dingers. But that’s seemingly more about backspin and pull ability than raw EV. And I don’t think those things really play in here.
So those are the guys I would completely fade
→ Cal Raleigh
→ Byron Buxton
→ Jazz Chisholm
You could actually just play the fades. You could put one “unit” on each of the remaining five guys. So you’d lose five units if one of my fades wins. And you’d win this in the cases of the rest of these guys winning:
If Oneil Cruz Wins: -1.7 units
If James Wood Wins: -0.5 units
If Matt Olson: +3.0 units
If Brent Rooker: +3.5 units
If Junior Caminero: +7 units
That sets you up for a backbreaker if the favorite does the thing that favorites do. So I wouldn’t recommend it, but hey.
My Favorites
Oneil Cruz and James Wood in my mind are the most likely winners here. They are both:
→ Left Handed
→ Huge
→ Green in both aggressive & protective bat speed
Nobody in the game hits the ball harder than Oneil Cruz, and that does seem to mean something for this contest. He is generating so much force with the bat. He’s one of those guys that can seemingly flick his wrists and hit a ball 325. Much of the same is true with Wood.
According to some tweet from last year, there are only three hitters above 6’7’’ in the league.
It’s good to be tall in sports.
So those are my two favorites not considering the prices.
Matt Olson is the last guy to make my final four. This is a lot of intangible talk, and I hate talking about intangibles. But Olson has three intangibles going for him. The trio of intangible. He is a veteran player (less nervousness?), he has past derby experience (lessons learned), and he’ll have the backing of the crowd as the home town rep.
He has not been a prolific home run hitter for the last year and a half. He hit 54 bombs in 2023 and just 46 since despite having 385 more plate appearances in 2024-2025. But that stuff does not matter. The NBA Dunk Contest has been won what like three straight years by a guy who isn’t even in the NBA. Figure that one out!
It’s impossible to know who it is, but somebody in the world is the world’s greatest home run derby hitter. And almost surely, that person is not in the MLB. Hitters dingers in batting practice and hitting them against professional pitchers are not the same thing at all.
The alarming spots of Olson’s profile is that redness in the swing speed. And maybe that’s why you’re getting double the odds on him compared to the two big lefties in front of him.
The truth is that I have no idea how much bat speed even matters. This could all just about stamina and repeatability. There’s also the angle of who is throwing to each guy, but I’m not even going to pretend to know what to do about that.
Recap and Pick
Here is this post in bullet points.
→ Cal Raleigh’s is stupid in the “ew” direction
→ Junior Caminero’s is stupid in the “ooooh” direction
→ Oneil Cruz and James Wood are my picks for most likely to win
But I’m taking my $20 and putting it on one man. Just one man. And that man is ……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………………….……………….
And he knows how to hit home runs in Truist Park. Well done.