(Negative) Thoughts on the New Home Run Derby Format

Nick Mandarano

You know what I love about baseball? There’s no clock. There’s no deadline by which a hitter has to hit the walk-off or a pitcher has to get the final out. There are just 54 outs, 27 for each team. Remember Earl Weaver?

"You can't sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You've got to throw the ball over the damn plate and give the other man his chance. That's why baseball is the greatest game of them all."

But lately it seems like baseball is desperate to speed up the game. They’ve put a timer on the pitcher. They’ve put in a timer for between innings. Now they’ve got a timer in the Homerun Derby.

The 2015 Home Run Derby will feature a whole new system of rules. For starters, the number of contestants will be reduced from 10 to 8. Those 8 sluggers will face-off in a single-elimination tournament. The winners of each head-to-head match-up will advance to the following round where the home run total will reset.

Oh, outs are over with as well. In an attempt to eliminate hitters from watching 78 pitches go by in between swings, the MLB has introduced a timer to each round of the Home Run Derby. From the release of the first pitch, a four-minute timer will begin to count down. When the timer hits zero, the round is over. However, if a hitter goes yard within the final minute of the round, the clock will stop until the hitter swings at a pitch that does not result in a home run. Hitters will also have available to them one 45-second timeout in each round. Additionally, hitters have opportunities to add bonus time to the round.

Statcast will be tracking the distances of each homerun hit during the event. Two homeruns that are at least 420 feet will add a full minute of bonus time. A thirty-second bonus will be added for a homerun of at least 475 feet.

The tiebreaker system is new as well. In the event of a tie, any involved hitters will perform a 90-second swing-off with no time stoppages or bonuses. In the case that we are still witnessing a tie, successive 3-swing swing-offs will take place until a winner is declared.

So what does this mean for those of us that will be spending our Monday nights watching the league’s best power bats go at it? For starters, we’re going to see more swings and likely a quicker contest. After all, we’re left to believe that the intention of the rule changes was to make the Derby continue to flow. That’s a positive. I think I can speak for all of us when I say that we’re tired of seeing one swing, and then an inning’s worth of pitches go by before the next swing. For years I’ve suggested just putting an umpire behind the plate and calling balls and strikes. If the hitter looks at a strike, it’s an out. If the hitter looks at a pitch for legitimate reasons, then it’s a no call. Believe it or not, batting practice pitchers throw a bad pitch from time to time. I still think the umpire is the better option, but I’m excited to see how the timer affects each hitter’s approach.

Let’s also note that hitters will not get a penalty for swinging at balls they can’t hit, so we may see more free swingers. That also brings into question stamina. A minimum of five minutes, maybe more, of home run swings can really take a toll on a hitter. I can’t say for sure when or how that will come into play, but I’d be surprised if it doesn’t.

The time bonuses favor those who can hit the ball a mile. Sure, the Home Run Derby is for show and fans want to see 500-foot moonshots rather than line drives into the third row. But a home run is a home run, right? I’d much rather see any time bonuses be awarded for consecutive home runs rather than distance. It almost seems as if Major League Baseball just desperately wanted to incorporate Statcast any way they could.

Finally, we’re unlikely to see any Bobby Abreu/Josh Hamilton rounds anymore with the bracket system. Once the second hitter surpasses the total of his matchup that round, he advances and stops swinging regardless of the time left. And of course, less home runs equals less excitement.

My initial reaction to the rule changes was “why?” Much of it seems like unnecessarily drastic changes. I’m obviously already seeing potential problems with the new system, although I’ll give it a fair chance. I’ll watch with an open mind and see how it goes, but I have to be honest and say I’m not expecting any pleasant surprises.