Showdown at the Shed: Previewing the 2024 Home Run Derby

For those who enjoy the loudest, simplest, most dopamine-drenched form of baseball, today is a special day. It’s Derby day, and even better, the silly hats are not mandatory. The MLB Home Run Derby takes place at 8:00 p.m. ET at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas. What the Costco-coded ballpark lacks in aesthetics it makes up for in bulk. According to Statcast’s park factors, Globe Life yields more home runs than the average park both for righties (120) and for lefties (110), so we should be in for a show. You can watch on ESPN, but if you’re a nerd – and you’re reading FanGraphs right now, so I’m sure you can do the math on this one – you’ll probably prefer the Statcast broadcast over on ESPN 2.

As in any year, there’s a laundry list of Derby-worthy players who won’t be participating, with Shohei Ohtani, Aaron Judge, and Elly De La Cruz at the top. Still, this a solid sampling of swatters, and nearly every participant figures to have a legitimate shot at winning. Either we’ll have a first-time winner or Pete Alonso will take home his record-tying third title.

The field features three of the top six home run hitters in baseball this season — Gunnar Henderson, Marcell Ozuna, and José Ramírez — and two of the game’s brightest young shortstops: AL MVP candidates Henderson and Bobby Witt Jr.. It also includes three sluggers who take the Derby much more seriously than your average participant — Alonso, Henderson, and Teoscar Hernández — and two others who’ve won derbies at lower levels: Witt and Alec Bohm. Finally, there’s Adolis García, an electrifying slugger whose historic power display during the Rangers’ World Series run last season is sure to keep the crowd at full throat. In the sections below, I’ll break down all the new rules and I’ll try to make a case for why each candidate has a shot at the crown.

Rule Changes

In recent years, the entire Derby has taken the form of a single-elimination tournament, with the eight participants seeded based on their regular season home run totals. This year, the first round will be wide open. All eight players will hit as many home runs as they can, and the four players with the highest totals will advance into a four-person bracket. They’ll be seeded based on those totals, with the distance of their longest home run serving as a tiebreaker.

On the one hand, this will likely make the competition a little bit more fair. Last year, Adley Rutschman hit 27 home runs in the first round. That was the third-highest total of the round, but he failed to move on because he had the bad luck to be facing off against Luis Robert Jr., who hit 28. On the other hand, this change makes the Derby much more of an endurance contest. Swinging for the fences repeatedly is tiring work. In previous years, if you were batting second, all you needed to do was homer once more than your opponent, and then you could save your strength for the later rounds. That option is now gone. Everyone needs to max out their first-round total, so we should probably expect some sweaty, sluggish sluggers by the time we get to the final. Conditioning will be key.

If your favorite thing about the Home Run Derby is the byzantine rules, you’re in for a treat because we’re just getting started. This year, the timing of each round remains the same: Batters get three minutes in the first two rounds and two minutes in the final round, with one 45-second timeout per round. However, you might recall that in previous years, the system required the pitcher to wait until the last ball had landed before pitching, at least in theory. In practice, some pitchers flouted that rule, and as a result, their hitters saw way more pitches than did their opponents. In order to curb that practice (which while undeniably unfair was also extremely fun), the rules now include a maximum number of pitches per round: 40 in the first two rounds and 27 in the final round, which works out to 4.5 seconds per pitch. If you run out of pitches, then the round is over, even if there’s still time on the clock. Keep in mind, that’s a maximum number of pitches, not swings. That could make the command of the pitcher, already a huge factor, even more important. In recent years, if batters didn’t like a pitch, they could take it and their pitcher would fire another one right away. There wasn’t much of a time penalty, because they didn’t have to wait for the previous pitch to land. In this new format, if the pitcher misses their batter’s nitro zone, it makes a lot less sense for the batter to take the pitch and wait for the next one, because they only get so many precious balls.

The bonus system has also changed completely. This year, each player concludes each round with an untimed bonus round in which they can hit until they record three outs. If they hit a ball at least 425 feet within the bonus, then they earn a fourth out. In other words, batters could get locked in and launch a bunch of homers in a row during the bonus and pile onto their totals for the round, and because of the extra out, those who hit one especially long blast during the bonus would have an even greater advantage.

If there’s a tie in the head-to-head rounds after the bonus, then both players get a 60-second swing-off with no additional bonuses or timeouts. If they’re still tied after the swing-off, then they each get another swing-off that consists of just three swings. If it’s still tied after that, they do the whole three-swing business again until there’s a winner or until the sun swallows the earth, whichever happens first.

OK, that’s it. Those are all of the rules, I swear. Let’s move on to the participants. Although the players are no longer seeded, we’ll still discuss them in the order of their home run totals.

Gunnar Henderson

Henderson turned 23 on June 29, so he has the chance to become the youngest champion in Derby history. As a second-year player who won’t be eligible for arbitration until 2026, the million-dollar prize for first place would more than double his salary, and the $750,000 runner-up prize would very nearly double it as well. Based on his performance this season, he also has a strong case as the favorite. His 28 homers rank third in baseball behind Judge and Ohtani, and his 56.7% hard-hit rate ranks fourth among qualified players behind those two and Juan Soto. Henderson also leads the Derby participants with an average bat speed of 75.8 mph (which is also good for ninth in all of baseball). Not that it’s particularly relevant to the Derby, but Henderson is second in the majors with 6.1 WAR, just a hair behind Judge (6.3).

Henderson is also really invested in the Derby. On Thursday, he held a legit practice session at Oriole Park, timed by teammate Colton Cowser and pitched by his Derby pitcher, Norfolk Tides manager Buck Britton. “I’ve hit his BP well,” Henderson told reporters when asked why he chose Britton to pitch to him. “He throws good BP and it’s a pretty easy motion.” However, Britton noted a potential issue with Henderson’s approach. “Hopefully those balls just get over the wall,” said Britton. “He hits the ball so hard, but he hits it at really low angles, so just getting the ball in the air” will be key. Henderson is fourth in baseball with 112 blasts, but just 31 of those blasts have come on fly balls, which sends him down to 12th place and third among Derby participants, behind Ozuna (43) and Hernández (32). When Henderson does put the ball in the air, he’s golden. His 31.1% HR/FB rate is the best in baseball. But before you get too concerned about Henderson’s launch angle, look no further than the last two winners. Henderson’s 46.9% groundball rate is lower than the 48.2% rate that Soto ran in the first half of 2022, the year he won the Derby, and the 49.8% rate that reigning champ Vladimir Guerrero Jr. put up in the first half of last season.

Marcell Ozuna

There’s no getting around this: Ozuna was a terrible choice to represent Major League Baseball in such a celebratory event. In 2021, he was arrested for a domestic violence incident, part of which was captured on body cam footage. The charges were dropped when Ozuna agreed to participate in a pretrial diversion program. He was also arrested for driving under the influence in 2022 and pleaded no contest in 2023. It’s not as if there’s any criteria for the Derby that forced MLB to put Ozuna front and center; his All-Star selection serves as its own acknowledgement of the very strong season he’s having. So inviting him to participate in the Derby, the league’s most fan-oriented and family-friendly night of the year, is an active choice, one that sends a very clear message about the league’s values. Ozuna has hit 26 home runs this season.

José Ramírez

Since the start of the 2016 season, Ramírez has put up 46.5 WAR, fifth in baseball. But don’t let the fact that he’s one of the game’s greatest all-around players obscure his power. Since the start of the 2017 season, Ramírez has hit 220 home runs, sixth most in baseball. Also, don’t sleep on Ramírez tonight just based on how he performed in his first Derby appearance, in 2022, when he batted right-handed because of a major thumb injury that completely sapped his power. This year, he’s expected to bat left-handed, and the power is back. This season he’s tied for sixth in baseball with 23 home runs. Ramírez’s average homer this season travels 388 feet, the shortest distance among the group, but that shouldn’t necessarily be held against him. It’s a result of his focus on pulling balls on the air, an excellent recipe for success and something he does more frequently than any other participant. Likewise, although Ramírez has the lowest 90th-percentile exit velocity of the group, at 103.9 mph, he can dial things up when he wants to. His hardest-hit ball of the year was 116.6 mph, which trails only Witt among the group and ranks 12th in all of baseball.

The interesting thing is that it might actually make more sense for Ramírez to bat right-handed tonight, and not just because righties have an easier time leaving the yard at Globe Life. Over the course of his career, 69% of his homers have come from the left side, but that’s largely because he faces way more righty pitchers than lefties, meaning he bats left-handed far more frequently than he does righty. His power output on a rate basis is about the same from both sides; across his career, he’s homered in 4.1% of his plate appearances when he bats left-handed as well as when he hits righty, and each side’s HR/FB ratio is nearly identical, too. That said, he definitely has the potential for more power from the right side. His exit velocity, barrel rate, and hard-hit rate are lower from the left side this season and over the course of his career. With the introduction of bat tracking data, I can tell you that this season, his bat speed averages 74.2 mph from the right side, nearly 4 mph faster than his 70.3 mark from the left side. According to Mike Petriello, who will be calling the Derby on ESPN 2 tonight, “on balls hit in the air, every 1 mph of bat speed earns you approximately six more feet of distance.” That’s a difference of nearly 24 feet.

Teoscar Hernández

Considering he has never finished a season with more than 32 home runs — in 2021, his only 30-homer campaign — Hernández might be easy to overlook, but he’s a strong dark horse candidate. The 31-year-old has been one of the game’s most consistent power hitters ever since he became a big-league regular in 2018. If we ignore the 2020 season, when Hernández managed 16 homers in just 50 games, then he’s hit at least 25 homers in each of the last four seasons, and at least 20 in each of the last five. He may not lead this year’s eight participants in any one category, but since 2018, he’s never once finished a season below the 80th percentile in barrel rate, average exit velocity, or max exit velocity.

Perhaps even more important than his credentials is the fact that Hernández really wants to win. He openly campaigned to be included, and once he was chosen, he sought advice from Guerrero Jr., a two-time Derby contestant who won last year’s tournament, and Ohtani, his Dodgers teammate who participated in the 2021 Derby. The two warned him about the effect that fatigue can play, and Hernández has said that he’ll focus on lifting the ball rather than tiring himself out with max-effort hacks. “I think I have a little bit of an advantage because I swing a lot,” Hernández said. “I take a lot of swings every day. My body is used to going swing, swing, swing without getting rest.”

Hernández has held two timed practice sessions with his Derby pitcher, Dodgers third base coach Dino Ebel, whose son Brady just participated in the High School Home Run Derby this weekend. Anyone who’s watched the Derby regularly knows that the pitcher makes a huge difference, and in Ebel, Hernández might have something of a secret weapon. This will be his fourth Derby pitching appearance at the big-league level, and he also pitched in two minor league derbies. He helped Vladimir Guerrero win the 2007 Derby, then pitched to Albert Pujols in 2015 and Joc Pederson in 2019.

Pete Alonso

Alonso has been in a funk lately; he has just two home runs this month, and over his last 12 games, he’s batting .196 with no extra-base hits and a 41 wRC+. But don’t kid yourself: Alonso is a prolific home run hitter. Since the start of the 2019 season, when he was named NL Rookie of the Year after leading the majors with 53 homers, Alonso has clobbered 211 home runs, the most in all of baseball. He’s played in only four full seasons, and he’s already one of just 48 players in major league history with at least three seasons of 40 or more homers. The 6-foot-3, 245-pound Polar Bear is also proficient at crushing Derby dingers. He won back-to-back titles in 2019 and 2021 and has participated in every subsequent Derby. A third victory would tie Ken Griffey Jr. for the record, though he’ll need to appear in three more after this one if he wants to tie Junior’s record of eight appearances. Alonso has asked former Mets bench coach Dave Jauss, who pitched to him in 2021 and 2022, to come back and pitch again after last year’s first-round exit.

This season, Alonso’s average exit velocity has fallen all the way down to the 35th percentile, but he can still bash the ball when he gets hold of it. His maximum exit velocity has never dropped below the 97th percentile, and his 75.1-mph bat speed is second only to Henderson among Derby participants. Crucially, Alonso doesn’t need to lift the ball to hit it out. This season, 9.4% of his line drives have left the ballpark. That ranks second among all players who have hit at least 25 line drives, and it’s more than twice the rate of six of his seven Derby competitors. Alonso also boasts the hardest-hit home run of all eight participants, a 115.3-mph blast on May 16.

Adolis García

García is one of the most exciting players in baseball, but he’s currently sitting on -0.1 WAR for the season. But even in a replacement-level year, his power numbers are still formidable. His hard-hit rate, barrel rate, average exit velocity, and 90th-percentile exit velocity, while down from last year, still rank in the 83th percentile or higher. Moreover, García clearly still has top-level power, as he hit the hardest ball of his entire career, a scorching 116.1-mph line drive double, back in May.

For a few reasons, García has to be a favorite. First, he’s got Derby experience. Although he crashed out of last year’s first round with 17 homers, the second-lowest total of all eight participants, he was pacing for a great round until he fell into a funk and he hit just two home runs over the final minute. The next factor can’t be overstated: García excels under the bright lights. He launched 39 home runs last season, and then added eight more in the playoffs, including a five-game homer streak that stretched from the ALCS to the World Series. In front of a home crowd that is certain to be going crazy for him, García will be giving it his all, and his all is a whole lot. If you watched the Fall Classic, you know that when García wants to hit one out of the ballpark, he’s got just about the fiercest home run hack in the game. No matter how he fares, García is sure to put on a show.

Bobby Witt Jr.

This may be Bobby Witt Jr.’s first MLB Home Run Derby, but it’s not exactly his first rodeo. In 2018, Witt won the High School Home Run Derby at Nationals Park, out-dueling Rece Hinds – yes, the same Rece Hinds who has done nothing but crush monster home runs during his first week as a big leaguer – in the final round. In a competition like the Derby, it makes sense to look at how players do when they’re served up pitches right down the middle, and both Witt’s 71.7% hard-hit rate and 99.6-mph exit velocity on those meatballs lead the eight participants by far.

Witt’s Statcast sliders are red enough to make a vampire salivate, and he tops all participants in barrels and 90th-percentile exit velocity. This season, his average home run has traveled 418 feet. No one else in the Derby has an average above 410. Witt is also the only participant to hit a homer more than 450 feet this season, and he did it twice. In short, there’s no one in the Derby who can hit the ball harder than Witt.

Don’t let Witt’s placement this far down on the list fool you. Although his 16 homers are the second-lowest total among participants, Statcast credits him with 21.2 expected homers, fourth most. That gap of 5.2 homers is the largest in baseball. Not only is Witt the kind of all-around athlete you shouldn’t bet against in any kind of skills competition, he’s also coming into the Derby with a full head of steam. Over the past two weeks, he’s batting .409 with four homers and a 215 wRC+.

Alec Bohm

Bohm is the obvious underdog. With a 130 wRC+, the 27-year-old is having a breakout season. But even as he’s added a tick of exit velocity and nearly four percentage points to his hard-hit rate, he’s hardly a home run hitter. His 11 long balls put him in a 16-way tie for the 89th-highest total in baseball, and he’s the only Derby participant who is not on pace to reach the 20-homer threshold. Bohm has hit just one ball long enough to earn a bonus this season, a 427-foot shot on June 30. However, before you conclude that Bohm doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in Arlington to win this thing, keep in mind that none of the last three Derby winners was seeded better than fourth.

Also, Bohm has won a derby before. In 2016, he won the derby of the Coastal Plain League, a wood-bat collegiate summer league. Scott Wingo, who coached Bohm’s Wilmington Sharks and pitched to him in that derby, will pitch to him again tonight. It’s also possible that Bohm could benefit from the new rules. In a Derby where taking a pitch comes with a higher penalty, the ability to drive anything you see could matter more. Consistency has always been an underrated part of success in the Derby, and no participant comes close to squaring up the ball as often as does Bohm. On a per-swing basis, he ranks seventh among all qualified players in hard-hit rate, ninth in squared-up rate, and 11th in blast rate. If he can get in a groove, he could have a chance.

Who’s Going to Win

If you’ve read Jay Jaffe’s previews in previous years, you know that Jay closes with a prediction. Even more annoyingly for me, he’s quite often right. Jay predicted Bryce Harper’s 2018 win, Alonso’s in 2019, and Vladito’s just last year. I can’t promise Jay’s level of accuracy, and I genuinely believe that the field is wide open, but my gut tells me to go with Bobby Witt Jr. I say that not just because he’s capable of putting on a show when he’s locked in, but because he’s such a physical marvel that even when he’s not locked in, he’s got enough power to push him through. I now look forward to watching Witt flame out in the first round.