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.
This is the first time I’m writing a home run derby preview, so this will be interesting, fun, and probably useless.
I have fond memories of the home run derby from when I was a kid. I used to get so hyped for the All-Star stuff. That was mainly because I was like 6-15 years old and everything was more exciting back then because things were newer and bigger. The other thing that probably factored into it was that you didn’t get to see the league’s players very often back then. My baseball watching was mostly restricted to Pirate games and Sportscenter highlights (back when they did highlights, RIP).
There weren’t immediate on-demand highlights and video clips, and your home team only played a handful of interleague games every year. So there was a real mystery to some of these big names, with the derby and the All-Star game being a rare chance to see them in action.
And then, when I got a little older, a little more free, my high school buddies and I would always get together in my friend Nick’s basement to watch the derby on this massive (probably 9,000 pounds at the time) TV he had down there. We’d scrounge up ten bucks however possible, put $5 in for pizza, and then $5 in for a winner-take-all derby prediction contest. I remember Prince Fielder making me pretty rich one year ($25 baby!!!). Just great memories there. We still every year start a group chat and run the same contest we always used to, and who knows maybe I’ll even get myself some Pizza Hut tonight for old time’s sake.
The truth is, I probably won’t even watch the derby. It’s kind of boring, and I feel some sort of obligation to my wife to not watch any baseball during these four days off. We’ll certainly watch Skenes’ inning tomorrow, but other than that I doubt I’ll see much.
But now we can move on from talking myself and look at this derby. It’s 2024, and betting runs the world. So we’ll take a look at this from that perspective. It’s a bad idea to bet on it, don’t get me wrong - the lines are absolutely juiced out of control, but this is clearly the best lens to examine something like this through given what I’m good at doing. So let’s have at it.
The Hitters & Odds
Pete Alonso +320
Marcell Ozuna +425
Bobby Witt Jr. +425
Gunnar Henderson +475
Adolis Garcia +550
Teoscar Hernandez +1000
Jose Ramirez +1300
Alec Bohm +1700
The New Format
The only thing constant in MLB these days is change, so we have a new slate of rules for the contest again this year. The bracket-style competition doesn’t start until after four hitters are eliminated. Everybody will go once, and the four with the most homers will go into a bracket and be seeded by the number of homers they hit. The tiebreaker is longest homer.
There’s also a new “pitches seen maximum”, here’s an excerpt from an MLB article about the format.
The first two rounds will still be three minutes, and the final round will still be two minutes, as was the case before 2024. But now, there’s also a maximum number of pitches each hitter can see in each round. The first round and semifinals will conclude whenever three minutes, or 40 pitches, comes first (excluding the bonus period, which will be explained below). Likewise, the finals will conclude whenever two minutes, or 27 pitches, comes first, excluding the bonus period.
There’s another change involving the “bonus time”:
Instead of getting an automatic 30 seconds of extra time, each player now gets bonus pitches up until they record three outs within that bonus period. Furthermore, if a player hits a home run of at least 425 feet within the bonus period, then the bonus period is extended to last until the player records his fourth out in that period. But it’s no longer the case that hitting especially far home runs during the regulation period leads to extra bonus time.
Check out the article I linked for the full details on how it will work tonight.
The Field
Dimensions can’t be that important in a derby since almost all of these dongs will be long gone. But we’ll see a few line drives that barely make it out. From a quick look, it doesn’t seem that either side of the plate has a big advantage here. We have short porches on both sides, with things getting pretty deep the more towards centerfield you go. So hitters will and should be trying to pull their fly balls.
Just for fun, here are the shortest homers hit there over the last two seasons:
Mostly righties, but this is biased because most of the league’s hitters are righties. Not much to learn here.
We have one switch-hitter in Jose Ramirez, and we’ll likely see him hitting from the right side. He has more swing speed there, and that’s what he did last year. So we’ll only see one lefty here (Gunnar).
Prior Winners
2023: Vlad Guerrero Jr.
2022: Juan Soto
2021: Pete Alonso
2019: Pete Alonso
2018: Bryce Harper
2017: Aaron Judge
2016: Giancarlo Stanton
The Data
Here’s the table with pretty much everything I’m concerned about:
Height and weight become less relevant since we know how hard they can hit the ball. If a 5’5’’ dude has 84mph bat speed, we can stop caring that he’s only 5’5’’ since he’s shown the ability to swing the bat hard while being shorter.
Height and weight probably do come into play in terms of stamina. It’s gotta be easier for a tall and strong dude to swing the bat over and over again at the same high speed as compared to a smaller guy.
Looking at those previous winners, you won’t find anybody below 200 pounds. If 200 pounds is the magic number (certainly, it is not), that would disqualify Witt, J-Ram, and Hernandez. There’s a lot of randomness in this as well, so everybody has a chance, but if I’m parsing between dudes - give me the meat.
The Juice
Translating those betting lines into implied odds:
Pete Alonso 24%
Marcell Ozuna 19%
Witt Jr. 19%
Henderson 17%
Garcia 15%
Hernandez 9%
Ramirez 7%
Bohm 6%
If there was no juice, these percentages would add up to 100%, since one and only one player must win this thing. Instead, they add up to 116%. So that’s a 16% rake off the top. That’s a lot, and enough to make it easy to just not bet it at all if you’re concerned with getting proper value.
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s gamble!
Jon’s Pick
Choice by Elimination
My general rule is never to take a 25% chance when there are eight possible winners (100/8=12.5%). So I’m off the favorite (Alonso). Always remember - betting the favorite is stupid unless the favorite wins. So, let’s not bet on the favorite and hope the favorite doesn’t win.
I would say that Witt Jr. is too expensive. He’s a freak athlete and can hit the ball extremely hard, but the 190-pound thing is shaking me up. The stamina just might not be there to take it down.
I’m not sure a longshot has ever won one of these things. Bohm, Ramirez, and Hernandez are the clear longshots. If I had to pick one of them, I’d go with J-Ram. Experience probably matters a bit here, and he’s back for a second consecutive year. But we’re whittling it down to just one player that I’ll be betting on, so all three of these guys are GONE.
So we’re down to Ozuna +425, Henderson +475, and Garcia +550. Now we get weird.
I don’t like to hold people’s past sins against them. It’s not for me to judge, and I believe in forgiveness and redemption. That said, I am picking someone to win this contest for two purposes (fun and to bring attention to myself), so I’m not going to pick Ozuna. I don’t condemn the man and I’m not going to sit here acting like I’m morally superior to him, but I will not pick him!
Adolis Garcia also has experience, and he’s the home-town favorite. That gives him a boost, but his bat speed is trash, and he’s short.
So here we are, my pick.
Gunnar Henderson will take down the derby tonight, you heard it here FIRST. And if you heard it somewhere else before this, just forget you did.
Enjoy the derby, folks! If you think I’m doing this again for the All Star game tomorrow, you’re nuts!