2022 Home Run Derby Preview: Alonso Goes for the Three-Pete
What’s 4,700 or so feet of elevation between friends? Where last year’s Home Run Derby was held in the majors’ most homer-conducive venue, mile-high Coors Field, this year’s event will be held in Dodger Stadium, which is an estimated 522 feet above sea level. The difference is hardly trivial when it comes to the hard-hit fly balls that are the stuff of Home Run Derbies; based on league-wide data from 2021 and ’22, those hit with exit velocities of 95 mph or higher traveled an average of 31 fewer feet at Dodger Stadium (361 feet) than at Coors Field (392 feet).
The difference may not matter to two-time defending champion Pete Alonso, who won at Progressive Field with its 653-foot elevation in 2019, as well as last year at Coors. In beating out upstart Trey Mancini last summer, Alonso became the fourth two-time winner in Derby history, joining Ken Griffey Jr. (1994, ’98–99), Prince Fielder (2009, ’12) and Yoenis Céspedes (2013–14). This year, he has a chance not only to tie Griffey but also to become the first player to win three in a row. Three-Peat, Three-Pete — we’ll never hear the end of it if he wins the event, which airs at 8 pm ET on ESPN on Monday night.
Given his experience with the format, Alonso has to be considered the favorite from among the eight participants. Of the four previous champions who are still active, Bryce Harper (2018 winner) is on the injured list, Giancarlo Stanton (2016) and Aaron Judge (2017) both declined the opportunity to participate, and Robinson Canó (2011) is far removed from his power-hitting days. Only two active runners-up, Kyle Schwarber (2018) and Albert Pujols (2003) are here; Mancini (2021), Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (2019), Miguel Sanó (2017), Joc Pederson (2015), and Nelson Cruz (2009) are not. Neither are Shohei Ohtani, Mike Trout, or Fernando Tatis Jr., for various reasons. While it would be great to have any of the aforementioned players participating, the contest is a physically demanding one, and many of those stars are already banged up if not out entirely. Still, even with just one contestant returning from last year’s field — Juan Soto, who lost to Alonso in the semifinal round — it’s a compelling group of sluggers.
I’ll get to the participants shortly, but first, the format, which is along the lines of what has been used for the event since 2015, a set of changes that has done wonders for the watchability of this spectacle. The competition will be an eight-man, single elimination bracket that uses timed rounds of three minutes apiece for the first two rounds and two minutes for the final round. Each competitor gets an additional 30-second bonus, plus potentially a second 30-second bonus if he hits a home run with a projected distance of at least 440 feet (this was increased to 475 feet for Coors). Each player is allowed to call one 45-second timeout for use during regulation time; it can’t be used during bonus time. The lower-seeded player in each round goes first, and the round will end in the equivalent of a walk-off if the higher seed surpasses his total. If two contestants are tied after the bonus time, they each get a 60-second round with no bonus time or timeouts, and if they’re still tied after that, they each get rounds of three swings apiece until a winner is decided. The winner of the Derby will take home $1 million of the $2.5 million total pot.
The lower altitude isn’t the only factor that could reduce home run totals in this year’s contest. On a per-game basis, home run rates are down to their lowest levels since 2015; this year’s 1.08 homers per team per game is down 4.6% from last year and 22.9% from 2019, the year that homers peaked. A deader baseball with a higher coefficient of drag, and the league-wide use of humidors, which normalize the bounciness of the ball based upon its water content, are the apparent culprits. As a result, fly ball distances have decreased, both on a league-wide basis and at Dodger Stadium, the latter to an even greater degree. Here’s a comparison of all fly balls hit at 95 mph or higher:
Hard-hit fly balls around the majors are averaging 365 feet, down from 367 last year and a peak of 375 from 2019. At Dodger Stadium, they’re averaging 359 feet, down from 362 last year and a high of 373 feet in 2019.
As far as the dimensions go, Dodger Stadium is symmetrical, measuring 330 feet down the foul lines, 375 feet to true left-center and right-center, and 395 feet to dead center field. The outfield fences are eight feet high from bullpen to bullpen, then drop to 55 inches high in the corners, from the bullpens to the foul poles. Despite its symmetry, the park has recently favored righties when it comes to home runs, with a 107 park factor compared to 102 for lefties. Based on data since the start of the 2021 season, righties have a 14.7% rate of home runs per fly ball, lefties a rate of 13.1%.
Here’s the official bracket:
And here’s a look at the field with some relevant stats:
| Seed | Player | PA | HR | HR/PA | HR/Con | HR/FB | EVF | Avg HR | Barrel% | 440 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kyle Schwarber* | 391 | 29 | 7.4% | 13.4% | 25.4% | 99.1 | 413 | 21.7% | 18 |
| 2 | Pete Alonso | 395 | 24 | 6.1% | 8.9% | 20.5% | 94.3 | 401 | 13.7% | 19 |
| 3 | Corey Seager* | 389 | 22 | 5.7% | 7.6% | 19.3% | 94.5 | 403 | 11.5% | 8 |
| 4 | Juan Soto* | 393 | 20 | 5.1% | 7.8% | 20.8% | 96.1 | 410 | 12.9% | 9 |
| 5 | José Ramírez# | 375 | 19 | 5.1% | 6.4% | 11.9% | 88.6 | 386 | 6.4% | 2 |
| 6 | Julio Rodríguez | 380 | 16 | 4.2% | 6.5% | 18.8% | 96.0 | 400 | 14.3% | 2 |
| 7 | Ronald Acuña Jr. | 270 | 8 | 3.0% | 4.8% | 13.6% | 97.8 | 437 | 14.5% | 20 |
| 8 | Albert Pujols | 173 | 6 | 3.5% | 4.9% | 12.5% | 93.0 | 403 | 8.2% | 8 |
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Jay Jaffe