Spencer Schultz (@ravens4dummies on Twitter/X) has joined PressBox to share his favorite plays each day.
Home Run Derby plays:
Derby winner to be a first-time participant.
Gunnar Henderson, Bobby Witt Jr., Marcell Ozuna and Alec Bohm and Teoscar Hernandez include the best barrel rates, swing speeds, exit velocities and other advanced numbers. Also, the last six winners have all been 26 years old or younger. This field has the three youngest participants included.
Gunnar Henderson to win.
A homer pick, Henderson has a short porch in left to pull the ball over. His short swing length (7.2 feet), barrel rate, bat speed and average/max exit velocity numbers are all terrific. This is a glorified batting practice, but Henderson will have a chance to grow his star to a new level tonight and become the third shortstop to ever win the Home Run Derby, with Cal Ripken Jr. and Miguel Tejada being the other two, both Orioles when they won the event.
Bobby Witt Jr. to win.
Take Henderson’s swing metrics and copy and paste them to Witt from the other side of the plate. Checking all of the same boxes, Witt is young with a short, explosive swing that is as impressive as they come.
Marcell Ozuna to win.
While Ozuna would be the oldest winner in quite some time, he also has outstanding bat/power numbers.
Final to be Henderson vs. Witt.
Currently a +1300 long shot, the two stud shortstops will jockey for “best shortstop in baseball” for years to come. This would be a storybook matchup to fuel that narrative and makes sense considering the previously mentioned reasoning.
Under 275.5 home runs to be hit.
With a new format, 40-pitch maximum for the first two rounds and 27 after, participants would have to hit a home run on more than half of their pitches in order to hit this number. A tiebreaker could help, but that would still be a torrid pace. If batters hit a home run on half of all pitches, that would put them at 267 home runs. That would be quite a feat, one that sounds too difficult to achieve, unless there’s a tiebreaker or two.
Photo Credit: Colin Murphy/PressBox
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