NEW YORK, N.Y. – With the 2014 All-Star Game and all its festivities just around the corner Major League Baseball announced a new format and the team captains for the 20th annual Gillette Home Run Derby on Monday. Jose Bautista of the Toronto Blue Jays and Troy Tulowitzki of the Colorado Rockies will serve as captains for their respective league’s derby teams. However, those familiar with the formats in years’ past will find this season’s format to be a little different and possibly a little easier to track.
This season, 10 participants, five from each league, will compete in four rounds of competition that fans will be able to track with a nifty bracket that can be found online. The league captains will select the four sluggers that will compete with them for the derby crown. Fans can vote in the Home Run Derby Fan Poll and their selections will be taken into consideration by the captains when they put the teams together.
An opening round with each of the 10 sluggers getting seven outs to hit home runs in will then send the top six sluggers to the next round with the top home run hitter in each league getting a bye to the semi-finals. The number two and three hitters in each league will face-off in the quarter-finals with the winner facing their leagues’ top, first-round slugger in the semi-finals. The winners of each semi-final will then face in the final. Hitters will be allotted seven outs in each round of play.
The one area that I disagree with is the construction of the field of participants. I think the best way to build the field would be to pull each league’s derby champions from the prior seasons’ and make them captains. Then slots 2-4 should go to the three players with the most homers in each league at the break with the final slot going to a fans’ choice participant.
What do you think? How should MLB select the participants in the Home Run Derby? Please comment with your thoughts.
