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The Home Run Derby Needs to Go All-In on Showcasing MLB’s Young Stars
By Joe Tansey
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The Home Run Derby is arguably the best individual skill competition that any of the four major American sports has as part of an All-Star weekend.
I mean, let’s be honest, who doesn’t love to see their favorite baseball players hit 450-to-500-foot bombs for hours?
But I would suggest the Home Run Derby make one tweak so that the event is not only fun, but it opens the national fan base to the younger stars in the majors.
The Derby needs to go all-in on promoting the likes of Gunnar Henderson and Bobby Witt Jr. and have at least half of the field made up of the game’s up-and-coming stars.
Henderson and Witt are both in the 2024 field, but I could argue the event would have even more buzz if MLB found a way to put Elly De La Cruz and Oneil Cruz in the field to show off the personalities of the players who dominate the social media highlight reels on a daily basis.
The perfect player for this idea would be Minnesota’s Royce Lewis, who hit 10 home runs in 24 games this season. Unfortunately, injuries have betrayed the No. 1 overall pick in the 2017 MLB draft and he’s on the injured list once again.
That’s the idea, though, of what the Derby should look like.
MLB is a regionalized sport.
For example, Phillies fans aren’t going out of their way to watch the Twins, Pirates, or any team outside of the division, so you could use the Derby as an entry point for those fans to take in the skill level and personalities of those players.
Honestly, Lewis would have been the perfect guy to fit that description because I guarantee few people outside of Minnesota 1) knows he exists and 2) realize he was a No. 1 overall pick.
I could argue that Wyatt Langford of the Texas Rangers (one of the AL Rookie of the Year favorites) or his injured teammate Evan Carter would be perfect for Derby inclusion as well, especially with the All-Star Game taking place in Arlington. I get that Adolis Garcia is in the competition, but for this concept, having the potential AL Rookie of the Year in the field could build up the buzz.
Take the 2023 Derby as an example of how it can launch a player into more households. Adley Rutschman didn’t make it out of the first round because he lost to Luis Robert, but he put on a show with 27 first-round home runs and probably won a few more fans because of that performance.
MLB has done a good job of putting its top-tier young players in the Derby, but let’s look back on, say 2017 when Aaron Judge won, as an example.
The field included Mike Moustakas, Miguel Sano, Justin Bour, and Charlie Blackmon.
When Pete Alonso won in 2019, Matt Chapman, Josh Bell, and Carlos Santana were part of the field. No one remembers that because Alonso won in a head-t0-head battle with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in the final, but it’s part of the larger point that at least a few players per year enter the Derby and simply don’t belong there.
Imagine how cool a 2024 Derby would be if rising superstars Henderson, Witt, De La Cruz, and Cruz (and Lewis if healthy) went up against Alonso, Guerrero, Julio Rodriguez, and Juan Soto. It would be a showcase of the next generation of stars competing alongside the incumbent stars of the Home Run Derby.
I don’t need to see Teoscar Hernandez, who is at best the fourth-best hitter on the Dodgers, or Alec Bohm with 11 home runs in 2024, in the field.
The Home Run Derby is admittedly in a much better spot than the Slam Dunk Contest, but by making at least half the field 25 and under rising superstars, it can serve as a marquee event and an introduction of these players to the rest of the country.
Joe Tansey writes sports betting posts for Crossing Broad and also covers the Philadelphia Union for his Substack site, Union Soccer Blog.