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Alonso emerged victorious, and that’s when the the fans in attendance finally gave him the cheers he deserved. This wasn’t the Vladito Home Run Derby, though MLB should strongly consider doing that in 2020. Joc Pederson hammered 21 in round one, which was more than enough to beat Alex Bregman’s 16. Ronald Acuña Jr. had an excellent showing with 25 first round homers, and squeezed out Josh Bell and his 18 homers.
That was enough to overcome a respectable output of 18 from the Pittsburgh Pirates' Josh Bell. And even though British fans don’t seem fully up on how this whole rooting for baseball thing works—given the preponderance of split Yankees/Red Sox attire and this terrifying level of joy over a ball—they did get one thing completely right. The Year of the Rabbit Ball has made it that much harder to build a Derby field, if only because you have more good candidates than open spots. When everyone’s hitting for power, it’s hard not to feel like a deserving name is going to get left out. But alas, only two spots remain, and I don’t envy those who have to narrow down the field. Alonso hit another walk-off homer in the semifinals, launching his 20th of the round over the trees behind the center-field fence as the four-minute clock expired to give him one more than Acuna's 19.
National League
Now he has an indelible moment to attach to his name and pedigree, which is the very sort of thing the Derby should serve to do. The 23-year-old participated in the 2019 Home Run Derby, finishing as the runner-up to New York Mets slugger Pete Alonso. Guerrero didn't participate when the derby returned from a one-year hiatus in 2021 but did win All-Star MVP honors. Toronto Blue Jays first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. will not partake in July's Home Run Derby so that he can preserve his wrist health and focus on the second half of the season, according to Shi Davidi. Guerrero had previously suffered wrist soreness in May, and said that he views abstaining from the Derby as a precautionary measure.
It was a tough task and Guerrero was clearly drained, but he hit 22 homers anyway to bring his total for the entire Derby to an absurd 91. Some fans were surprised that baseball's mega prospect was asked to be in the Home Run Derby. He might be an elite prospect, but he's only hit eight homers since being called up. Here's the thing, though -- he has both the family genes for this kind of event, and he put in the work to crank out a special performance. Guerrero and Pederson’s multiple ties were the highlights of the night, but that’s what almost certainly sunk him and sapped him of his energy in the final round.
Metropolitan
Robert Ivory wore Vlad Sr.’s Montreal Expos jersey, carried a cutout of Vlad Jr.’s head. He’s a big enough fan of Vlad Sr. that he went to his Hall of Fame induction ceremony. He likes the Indians too — this is Cleveland after all — but he grew up in the era where so many baseball fans were in awe of free-swinging Vlad Guerrero. And now we’re all in awe of his baseball-bashing 20-year-old son. Round after round, Guerrero was hitting lasers into the left field bleachers, most of them landing in the two sections of seats under the left side of Progressive Field’s scoreboard. They started booing Joc Pederson as he pushed Vlad Jr. to all those tiebreakers.
Earlier this week, his wife filled out a Derby bracket and picked Vlad Jr. Bryce Harper won the previous year with 45, so, Schneider said, probably 55. Whereas Schneider previously fed him pitches over the heart of the plate, in the final round Guerrero asked him to leave the ball slightly inside so he could cheat to his pull side. Schneider tried to elevate pitches to keep Guerrero from needing to use his tiring legs. "It's pretty standard for him," said Marcus Stroman, Guerrero's Blue Jays teammate. "It's easy. It's very easy. Didn't surprise me in the slightest."
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Since then, Guerrero has blossomed into a superstar with the Blue Jays. Not only is he leading the Majors in home runs this season with 23, but he's at or near the top of almost every offensive category. His 1.111 OPS, 59 RBIs, and .440 on-base percentage all lead the Majors. He also leads the Majors in All-Star fan voting with almost 50% of the American League first base votes and will be a shoe-in for the All-Star game. Will usually ship within 1 business day of receiving cleared payment.
While Guerrero didn't win the 2019 derby, he certainly stole the show in Cleveland, hitting 91 home runs, the most of any player. Unfortunately for Toronto, New York Mets' first baseman Pete Alonso eeked by Guerrero with 23 home runs in the final round of the derby to claim the crown. Pederson, who lost in the final as a rookie in 2015, now has the most combined home runs at the Derby all time, with 99, while Guerrero -- in his first appearance -- tied the previous record of 91 held by Todd Frazier, who also competed twice. With the win came a cool $1 million bonus to supplement Alonso's base salary of $555,000. He said he would donate 10% of his winnings between two charities, the Wounded Warriors Project and the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation. Guerrero broke the Derby's single-round record in each of the first two rounds, but after surviving an exhausting duel with Joc Pederson of the Los Angeles Dodgers in the semifinal round, Guerrero didn't have enough to beat Alonso in the final.
Inside Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s incredible Derby performance
Alonso, unique in the competition in sending most of his hits toward center field, then followed with 23 to end it with plenty of time to spare. He became the first Met to win the event since Darryl Strawberry was a co-champion in 1986. He felt like he scored a piece of history when he caught one of Vlad Jr’s second-round homers. As did Tom Zackasee, whose season tickets in the front row of Section 180 paid off on Monday night. This was the night one of baseball’s most hyped young prospects became one of the game’s biggest stars.
That fell just short of Alonso, who needed 45 seconds to hit his first homer and labored his way to hit his 14th with one second left before his 30-second bonus would have kicked in. Guerrero's most impressive stretch of the night came in the middle of the second round. In a 2-minute, 1-second window, he swung at 25 pitches and homered on 19 of them. It was reminiscent of Hamilton, who, in a previous format that didn't pit players head-to-head, homered 28 times on 38 swings. It didn’t live up to the Guerrero-Pederson second round tie-stravaganza, and the extra work Guerrero had to put in to beat Pederson is likely why. Alonso, who was booed by the crowd when he was introduced for the final, hit 23 with over a minute left on the clock.
It's unclear who else MLB has reached out to about populating this year's field. Our own Matt Snyder provided his dream bracket on Monday. Of the 29 home runs hit in the first round, Vlad Jr. finished with five home runs over 450 feet and eight over 440 feet.
In his last 30 seconds, just before he topped out at 13 total homers, he looked defeated yet accepting of his fate. Javy Baez on third presumably was going on contact and simply got hung out to dry when Adzolay missed the bunt. Regardless of who screwed up worse, though, this multi-player TOOTBLAN is a deserving winner of This Week’s Worst Play of the Week.
There’s no reason for this card to cost any more than a dollar or two. The only baseball cards nowadays worth anything are rare variants or those from rookie years, and Palmeiro’s is neither. It was simply a snapshot of a young and developing power hitter right as he turned the corner into a consistent performer—one who would go on to have a brilliant career that today counts for seemingly nothing. "I feel bad for him," an exhausted Pederson said after his final swing. Still even at 37, they then moved on to a three-swing playoff -- and both hit one each, with Pederson pulling his last hit just foul. They went at it one more time, with Guerrero finally moving on after hitting two homers to Pederson's one.
But how much of that was aided by chemical supplements is an open question, and one that ultimately stained his career. With two on and a one-run Dodgers lead, he cranked a pinch-hit homer off Wade Davis and capped his trip around the bases with some aggressive blowing of kisses to the dudes who had been riding him. He told reporters afterward that he was simply irked at wearing one for no reason. Strop, though, thinks it’s because Puig is a few crayons short of a full set.
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