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Last year’s Home Run Derby was of more interest to Cubs fans because of the participation of Kyle Schwarber and Javier Baez.
No Cubs players were invited to participate in Cleveland this year, but the eight participants should put on a good show.
Here are the sluggers in this year’s bracket:
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My pick to win this year? Pete Alonso. Alonso slammed three home runs in the four-game series the Mets played at Wrigley Field last month and has 30 on the season, a Mets rookie record. He’s got a shot at breaking the MLB rookie record, set two years ago by Aaron Judge (52).
The hitters who have the best chance of putting on a great show, beyond Alonso, are probably Ronald Acuna Jr. and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. It’s great to see MLB promoting its younger stars like this. Carlos Santana of the Indians will be the hometown favorite.
The Home Run Derby begins at 7 p.m. CT and TV coverage will be on ESPN. Announcers: Karl Ravech, Mark Teixeira, Buster Olney and Jessica Mendoza. For those of you who are more stat-oriented, there will be a Statcast-based broadcast on ESPN2, with announcers Jason Benetti, Eduardo Perez, and MLB Statcast analyst Mike Petriello. The latter actually sounds pretty interesting and I’ll likely watch that one.
Enjoy, and discuss amongst yourselves.
Poll
Who will win the Home Run Derby?
This poll is closed
-
4%
Ronald Acuna Jr.
(2 votes) -
28%
Pete Alonso
(13 votes) -
17%
Josh Bell
(8 votes) -
2%
Alex Bregman
(1 vote) -
2%
Matt Chapman
(1 vote) -
33%
Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
(15 votes) -
4%
Joc Pederson
(2 votes) -
6%
Carlos Santana
(3 votes)