Major League Baseball’s Home Run Derby is a special competition held each year the day before the All-Star Game in which players compete to see who can hit the most home runs. The format of the event has changed several times since its debut in 1985. Currently, 10 players compete in a four-round event, with each player getting seven “outs” per round.
The 2013 Home Run Derby was won by Yoenis Cespedes of the Oakland A’s. Cespedes hit 32 home runs in total, including nine in the final round.
A new format is being introduced for the 20th annual Gillette Home Run Derby at Target Field in Minneapolis. Ten players will participate in the event on July 14 at Target Field, five from the American League and five from the National League.
Round 1
- Ten participants in total; five participants representing each league.
- The batting order will be determined prior to the event. The No. 1 hitter in the NL will bat first, followed by the No. 1 hitter in the AL. This order will continue for hitters #2 through 5 for each league, with the NL starting first, followed by the AL.
- Each participant will receive seven withdrawals.
- The player in each league who hits the most home runs (AL 1, NL 1) will automatically advance to round 3 (semi-finals).
- The next two participants with the most home runs from each league (AL 2, AL 3/NL 2, NL 3) advance to Round 2.
2nd round
- The two participants from the first round of each league will face each other (AL 2 against AL 3/NL 2 against NL 3).
- The NL game will take place first, followed by the AL game, with NL 2 and AL 2 choosing whether they want to bat first or second.
- Each participant will receive seven withdrawals.
- The winners of the second round matches (one from each league) will advance to the third round (semi-finals).
Round 3 (semi-finals)
- The top seed of each league (AL 1, NL 1) will face the winner of the second round of their league.
- The NL game will take place first, followed by the AL game, with NL 1 and AL 1 choosing whether they want to bat first or second.
- Each participant will receive seven withdrawals.
- The participant from each league with the most home runs will advance to the finals.
Round 4 (Finals)
- The winners of the semi-finals (one player from each league) will compete for the crown of Home Run Derby champion.
- The batting order will be determined by a drawing, which will take place during a meeting at the plate between the two finalists and their league captains (note that a finalist and a team captain could be the same person ).
- Each finalist will receive seven withdrawals.
Tiebreaker
- If two or more players are tied to advance to the next round or the championship, each player will be given three swings to hit as many home runs as possible. If they are still tied after three swings, they will each take one swing. This process is repeated as necessary until a player wins the swing-off.
Major League Baseball added the Home Run Derby to the schedule of All-Star events in 1985 at the Metrodome. The event was organized as a competition between the two leagues, with players getting five outs per inning in a two-inning event. The event format allowed for ties between individual players for the championship. In 1988, the Home Run Derby was rained out, the only time since the event’s inception that it was not held. The field size fluctuated early in the event, starting with five players per league, dropping to three in 1986 and two in 1987 before increasing to four in 1989. The field was 10 players total from 1996 to 1999 and has been set at eight since 2000.
In 1991, the number of outs was increased to 10, but the team competition format remained. However, a tiebreaker was implemented to determine an individual champion, and it was first used in 1993 when Juan Gonzalez defeated Ken Griffey Jr. in a playoff. Griffey Jr. won the title the following season, the first of his three Home Run Derby championships (the most for an individual player). The American League won the final team championship that year, finishing with five titles to the NL’s four.
The multi-round format currently in place was instituted in 1995, when the event moved from a team competition to an individual competition. The field remained split evenly between AL and NL players, although there were exceptions to this, most notably in 2005, when the field consisted of eight players representing eight different countries.
In 1998, Griffey won his second championship by tying Jim Thome 3-3 in the final round. Before the 2000s, ties were broken by the number of home runs a player had hit during the regular season up to that point. The following year, the Home Run Derby came to Boston for the first time and Mark McGwire put on a show, peppering 13 homers in the first round, most of them navigating the famous green monster at Fenway Park. However, McGwire ran out of steam in the second round, and the rules then did not combine the circuits from the first two rounds, so he failed to advance to the final, where Griffey won his second consecutive title.
Griffey attempted a triple at Atlanta’s Turner Field in 2000, but was beaten by Chicago’s Sammy Sosa, who set a record by hitting nine homers in the final round. That same year, MLB changed the format again, holding head-to-head matchups in the second round. The player with the most home runs in the first round faced the player with the fourth most. And two and three clashed. The format meant that a player could have the second-highest home run total, as well as in the second round, and not reach the finals.
This exact scenario happened in 2003, when Jason Giambi hit a record 12 homers in the first round, then 11 more in the second round, but was knocked out by Albert Pujols, who hit 14 homers in the second round, tying that by Giambi. single-lap record (set in the first round in 2001). Garrett Anderson won the title that year, then homered in the All-Star Game, becoming only the third player to accomplish the feat, joining Cal Ripken Jr. (1991) and Frank Thomas (1995).
In 2004, Miguel Tejada set a single-round record by hitting 15 home runs in the second round, en route to his eventual title. This record did not last long, as the following season Bobby Abreu hit 24 home runs in the first round at Comerica Park in Detroit. Abreu finished the event with 41 total home runs, an event record that still stands.
In 2008, Josh Hamilton made Home Run Derby history at Yankee Stadium, hitting a record 28 home runs, including 13 in a row at one point. Hamilton’s performance captivated the crowd, but not the title. With the totals reset for the final, Hamilton lost to Justin Morneau of Minnesota. Hamilton’s 35 total home runs hit during the event are still the second-most in Home Run Derby history.
