First, the bad news: The 2016 MLB Home Run Derby—which airs Monday at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN—will not feature big-raking San Francisco Giants left-hander Madison Bumgarner, an affront to the baseball gods if ever there was one.
The good news? The Derby will host several high-profile sluggers capable of launching baseballs into the mesosphere and keeping viewers’ eyes glued to an event that required an overhaul last season because of waning interest and flagging ratings.
The new rules were mostly a hit in 2015, when Todd Frazier—then of the Cincinnati Reds—won in dramatic fashion in front of his hometown fans.
Frazier, now with the Chicago White Sox, is back to defend his crown at San Diego’s Petco Park along with seven other bashers, who were seeded according to their home run totals as of July 6.
Here’s the bracket, courtesy of MLB Communications:
In case you need a refresher on the format: Hitters will have four minutes in each round to crack as many homers as they can. Each hitter gets one 45-second timeout to catch his breath in the first and second rounds and two 45-second timeouts in the final showdown. Also, two homers of 440 feet or further trigger 30 seconds of bonus time each round, meaning moonshots matter.
Here’s a look at the 2016 participants’ spray charts, per MLB.com’s Daren Willman:
And here are the odds for each participant, courtesy of Odds Shark:
- Giancarlo Stanton (MIA): 3-1
- Mark Trumbo (BAL): 15-4
- Todd Frazier (CWS): 5-1
- Wil Myers (SD): 13-2
- Adam Duvall (CIN): 13-2
- Carlos Gonzalez (COL): 8-1
- Corey Seager (LAD): 9-1
- Robinson Cano (SEA): 9-1
We aren’t holding those odds as gospel, as you’ll soon see. Still, they provide a solid starting point as we delve into some round-by-round predictions, utilizing stats, trends and, naturally, a dollop of old-fashioned gut feeling.
First-Round Predictions
Last season, Los Angeles Dodgers rookie Joc Pederson advanced all the way to the final round of the Derby before falling to Frazier in an epic slugfest. Now, 22-year-old Corey Seager will be looking to follow in his teammate’s footsteps and perhaps avenge Pederson’s loss.
He’ll be opposed by 30-year-old veteran Mark Trumbo of the Baltimore Orioles, who made his Derby debut in 2012.
Seager is one of the game’s brightest young stars, no argument there, but we’re calling this one for Trumbo, who has 28 homers to Seager’s 17 and is more of a prototypical masher.
No. 2 seed Frazier takes on the Colorado Rockies’ Carlos Gonzalez, and it’s tempting to roll with the defending champ. Frazier, after all, has 25 home runs to Gonzalez’s 19.
But CarGo’s homers have traveled an average true distance of 423.7 feet, per ESPN’s Home Run Tracker, compared to Frazier’s true distance of 390.8.
Granted, Gonzalez plays his home games in the rarefied air of Coors Field. But we’re picking this as our first upset of the evening and going with Gonzalez in a nail-biter.
Continuing with the upset theme, we’ll tap hometown hero Wil Myers to triumph over surprise No. 3 seed Adam Duvall. The Reds outfielder possesses plenty of raw power but could be done in by the bright lights, the partisan crowd and Myers’ superior true distance (405.3 to 399.1) and ability to spray the ball to all fields.
Robinson Cano won the Derby as a member of the New York Yankees in 2011 and is having a resurgent power year with the Seattle Mariners.
But how can we go against Giancarlo Stanton, who ranks third in the game with a true distance of 421.8 feet and is, to put it bluntly, the Platonic ideal of a fence-clearer?
As ESPN.com’s Jayson Stark opined, thank goodness Stanton (as well as Frazier) got a Derby invite despite not making the All-Star cut.
Second-Round Predictions
If things go as we predict in the first round (spoiler alert: they probably won’t), that leaves semifinal matchups of Gonzalez/Myers and Trumbo/Stanton.
Gonzalez has the true distance advantage and the edge in experience, as he participated in the Derby in 2012. Myers, again, will have the Friars fans behind him, but we’re giving this to Gonzalez, who said he’s “ready to go out there and try to win it, of course,” per Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post.
The blast-off between Trumbo and Stanton should be a DVR-rewind-worthy doozy, but we’ll go with Trumbo in a mild upset. Stanton, recall, has struggled for large stretches of the first half and is hitting just .233 heading into the All-Star break despite a recent surge.
That doesn’t mean too much come Derby time, but right now Trumbo—who is vastly exceeding the one-year, $9.15 million deal he inked with Baltimore—has confidence on his side.
Final-Round Prediction
That leaves a championship bout between CarGo and Trumbo, which almost rhymes.
It should be a battle, but we’ll give an upset edge to the lefty-swinging Gonzalez, who has the superior true distance and will be taking aim at Petco’s 322-foot right field pole.
Will it be one of Gonzalez’s last glorious acts in a Colorado uniform before a trade-deadline swap from the also-ran Rockies to a contender? That’s beyond the scope of these predictions.
Mostly, we invite you to sit back and enjoy the homers. Even without Bumgarner in the mix (maybe next year!), it should be a baseball-god-pleasing show.
All statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.
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