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Though Alonso raised the trophy, the highlight of the event may have come in the semifinals, when it took Guerrero three rounds of swing-offs to finally outlast Joc Pederson, 40-39. The format was changed, with the 8 participants being seeded 1 to 8 and facing off head-to-head in a bracket, with the winner advancing to the next round. In the opening round, both leagues hit 44 homers; National League players then won the final three head-to-head match-ups to finish ahead of the AL, 81-78. Alonso won all three of his rounds by just one homer, but it was enough to pocket the increased $1 million prize, more than doubling his annual salary. Judge, who set a new rookie home run record in 2017 , easily bested Sano in the finals and crushed four home runs further than 500 feet.
He's the only National League player with more than 20 homers so far this season and is third with a .554 slugging percentage. Stanton’s power numbers dropped slightly after the derby last year, albeit in 33 fewer games thanks to a season-ending injury. Stanton had a strong July before slumping in August and getting hurt. His slugging percentage and OPS stayed fairly consistent throughout the season, though lower than his career stats. This year's Home Run Derby will feature eight players, six of whom have hit double-digit homers in the first half.
Who has won the Home Run Derby?
In 2019, MLB introduced a $1 million bonus for the winning player, as an incentive to have more top-rank stars take part in the event. In 2011, a captain was chosen in each league, responsible for picking his three teammates, in order to give an extra incentive for the chosen sluggers to agree to take part. The Major League Baseball All-Star Home Run Derby has taken on many forms since its beginning in 1985. It is an afternoon to evening event on the Monday before the All-Star Game. It has been televised nationally since 1994 on ESPN, with Chris Berman providing the commentary every year until 2017, when he was replaced by Karl Ravetch. Strawberry and Joyner led the way with four jacks each, and the NL won, 8-7, thanks to Parker's runner-up three homers.
Frazier has seven home runs to straightaway center field this season. Donaldson would be expected to pull the ball on Monday night, but he has very good opposite-field power. His seven home runs to the opposite field are one shy of Nelson Cruz for the major-league lead. Only Yoenis Cespedes came close to matching Bautista, hitting nine homers each in the second round and finals. Toronto's star didn't have one majestic blast, like Stanton or Cespedes, but his consistency in the opening round perfectly encapsulated the way he hits in real games. Regardless of why those two sluggers faltered, they put on a show in the Home Run Derby.
Top stats to know: 2016 Home Run Derby
The only player in the majors with more such home runs is Mike Trout with 16. Céspedes, the defending champion, is looking to become the first back-to-back winner since Ken Griffey Jr. won in 1998 and 1999. In this era of Major League Baseball, where power is hard to come by, the Home Run Derby takes on a new level of importance. We don't just watch to see balls go over the fence but to see the amazing feats of strength from these incredible athletes.
Céspedes hit a total of 32 home runs in last year’s Home Run Derby, which was eight more than any other contestant. He has a .966 slugging percentage and 11 home runs in 59 at-bats there. A case where the champion is also the most impressive all-around performance. Yoenis Cespedes kept building momentum through the rounds before exploding with an impressive final round that included nine home runs to defend is Home Run Derby title. When Yankee youngsters Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez both announced their participation in the 2017 Home Run Derby, there was a split reaction among fans.
Home Run Derby
From 1989 to 1994, there were eight players invited, four from each league. Dawson went deep four times, accounting for half the home runs hit by the field of four. McGwire, who would eventually set a new single-season home run record with 70 in 1998, won his first and only Derby in '92.
Harper, the third participant in Derby history to win on his home turf, hit a 478-foot drive in the final round that was shorter than only one homer on the night -- a 479-foot shot from Javier Baez in the first round. For the first several years, the Derby was a modest event that wasn’t televised. After that, the contest expanded to three rounds of 10 outs, although the winner was still determined by cumulative homer total. At the low point in ’90, the entire eight-player field combined for a grand total of five big flies at Wrigley Field.
At the same time their decisions were cheered, a group of fans could be heard derisively groaning. There have been 38 editions of the Home Run Derby, and there have been 33 different winners. Juan Gonzalez was 23 years and 265 days old when he won in 1993. Juan Soto made MLB history Monday night, eliminating distractions, as well as an electric Julio Rodriguez to capture the 2022 Home Run Derby trophy . A Bolt is any run where the Sprint Speed (defined as "feet per second in a player's fastest one-second window") of the runner is at least 30 ft/sec.
Only Ryne Sandberg and Todd Frazier have won the Derby in their home parks. No Padres player has ever won the Derby and the Padres players have hit nine HR in Derby history, the third-fewest of any team . The 2005 Derby was the first "we are the world" long ball contest. The top four, regardless of their league affiliation, have advanced to the second round. If a tie existed among players for advancement into Round 2, the player with the most regular season home runs at the All-Star break advanced.
Louis Cardinals414826Jason GiambiNew York Yankees Jim EdmondsSt. In 2005, as part of the announcement of the inaugural World Baseball Classic, the derby featured eight players representing their native countries rather than their respective leagues. The nations represented were Canada, the Dominican Republic, the Netherlands, Panama, Puerto Rico, South Korea, the United States and Venezuela.
The 2007 and 2008 editions of the golden ball were sponsored by State Farm Insurance. They pledged $17,000 to the Boys and Girls Clubs across the country for every home run hit with 9 outs. The 17,000 supposedly represents the number of State Farm Agents across the country. The format of the competition has changed regularly, as MLB tried to maximize excitement and encourage its top sluggers to take part. As a result, it is not really possible to compare results across eras.
Bautista's first round consisted of 10 homers, the single most of any round by any player in this year's event. To be fair, Stanton's monster blast didn't actually travel 510 feet but was projected to go that far if there was no upper deck at Target Field. The ball landed "just" 422 feet, which is shorter than he usually hits homers this year. Dave Parker won the first Home Run Derby in 1985, and since then many of the winners have been the biggest stars in baseball.
The two players with the next-most home runs go head-to-head in the second round. The head-to-head winners will face their league's top seed in the third round, with the winners from each league going against each other in the final round. It’s a small sample size but only Cespedes saw any improvement after the Home Run Derby. The rest of the derby finalists had downturns, ranging from slight to significant. The truth is, whether or not his swing is affected, it’s unlikely Aaron Judge performs at his current level for the rest of the season.
Alonso has already done that, but the rest of this year's field is filled with players looking to win for the first time. Entering the 2022 event, Pete Alonso was already in a small circle of players with multiple Home Run Derby wins. With his victory at Coors Field last year, he became the fourth player in MLB history to win multiple titles. Escape Velocity takes the average of a player's batted ball velocities subtracted from 88. For a batter, Best Speed is an average of 50% of his hardest hit balls. For a pitcher it is the average of his softest 50% of batted balls allowed.
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