Credit: Wikimedia Commons
The month of July is a jam-packed one for Major League Baseball with three major events taking place; the home run derby, the All-Star game and the July 31st trade deadline. Since we are in the beginning of the month, we will talk about the first event on the schedule, the home run derby, and the changes it will see this season.
The home run derby has changed in the past, but this year will really see some interesting changes with the addition of brackets and timed rounds. Yes, timed rounds. There is no clock in baseball, as well as know, but there will be one in use for this year’s home run derby. And yes, baseball is still trying out a pitch clock in the minors this year, but that is another story.
The 2015 home run derby is slated for July 13th at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati, the home of the Reds. As for the addition of brackets, there will be eight players who take part in the event and they have yet to be chosen.
The eight players will be divided into a single-elimination bracket that will take three rounds to play.
Credit: MLB Communications @MLB_PR
Gone are the set number of outs that each player will have to compete with in the competition. In year’s past, each player had 10 outs to work with during the event. This year, each player will have five minutes to hit as many home runs as possible during each round they are still in the derby.
It will be a running clock that begins when the first pitch is released. It will stop during the final minute if home runs are hit. During that final minute, the clock will not resume after a home run is hit until a ball that is not a home run lands or until a hitter swings and misses at a pitch.
MLB’s darling, Statcast, will play a pivotal role in the derby this year. It will be used to measure the distance of each home run hit and this is very important because distance can help players acquire more hitting time. For example, if a player hits two home runs projected to travel 420 feet or more in any round, they will receive an additional one minute of hitting time. If a player hits a home run projected to travel 475 feet or more, they will obtain an additional 30 seconds of hitting time.
In the brackets, players will be seeded from number one to number eight based on their home run totals during the regular season up to games played on July 7. If there are ties, the tiebreaker will be home runs hit since June 15. If there are still ties, a coin flip will take place to determine seeding.
If a tie occurs in any round during the derby, players will go head-to-head in a 90-second swing-off. During the swing-off, no bonus time will be awarded and the clock will never stop running. The hitter with the higher total of home runs after the 90-second swing-off will advance to the next round.
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Jim is the creator and editor of At the Dish, Cinn City Sports, Life with Tony and Enzo and owner of JAVFreelancing. He coached baseball for five years, three at his former high school (Holy Cross in Delran, NJ) and two at prominent Division III program Rowan University in Glassboro, NJ as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator. He has worked for the Courier-Post in Cherry Hill, NJ; Metro Networks in Bala Cynwyd, PA; and was the play-by-play announcer for the Camden Riversharks of the Independent Atlantic League of Professional Baseball for two seasons (2007-2008) on Rowan Radio 89.7 WGLS-FM, the student-run radio station at Rowan University. Jim earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications and minor in Journalism from Rowan University in 2008. While in school he was the Assistant Sports Director at WGLS for two years and the Sports Director for one year. He also covered the football, baseball, softball and both basketball teams for the school newspaper 'The Whit.' Jim lives in New Jersey with his wife Nicole, sons Tony and Enzo and dog Phoebe. He can be reached at jimvassallo@mlbdrafts.com.
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