Each and every year, Major League Baseball seems to make some tweaks to the Home Run Derby to try to make it a better spectacle for the fans in attendance and those watching on television.
This year though, radical changes could take an event which has generally been a crapshoot to try to bet, and make it a truly profitable venture for sharp bettors.
THE FORMAT
Instead of your traditional format where all of the sluggers line up against each other, eliminating some of the competition in every round, this year, we have nothing but a bracket setup.
The man with the most home runs in the first half of the season participating in the Home Run Derby, Albert Pujols, will go up against the man with the fewest home runs in the first half of the season in the competition, Kris Bryant. The winner of that slug-off will go on to face the winner of the Joc Pederson/Manny Machado battle.
On the other side of the bracket, No. 3 Josh Donaldson will take on No. 6 Anthony Rizzo, the winner of which will face either Cincinnati's own Todd Frazier or Prince Fielder.
Also, instead of having the traditional 10 outs to work with, players will only have five minutes to hit as many home runs as they can. That puts a lot of pressure on the pitchers, as much as the hitters for this event. Throwing strikes is a must.
The clock will stop after any home run ball lands in the final minute of the five, and it will only start again after the next non-home run ball lands, or a batter swings and misses.
Players can also get up to 90 seconds of bonus time, depending upon how many home runs of long distances they knock. Two home runs which land 420 feet or more away from home plate earns the slugger an extra minute, while they also get a 30-second continuation of the clock if they hit a home run 475 feet or more.
YOUTH COULD BE SERVED IN DERBY
The fact of the matter is that you have the two elder statesmen in this competition (Pujols and Fielder), and the rest of the field. Those two vets have combined for 118 home runs in Home Run Derby history between them. The rest of the field has a grand total of 13 homers.
One would think that that would be a real factor, but the fact of the matter is that the pitchers are used to being able to waste as many balls as they need to in order to get the batter to find just the right one to swing at. This year, with the running clock, there's no way that batters are going to waste pitches, as they have to swing at just about everything.
That's where we think a man like Kris Bryant has an advantage even though he has hit the fewest home runs this season amongst the participants. He'll have his dad throwing to him on Monday, an advantage that none of the other batters will have. Bryant has already stated that his father knows where that sweet spot is for him to hit home runs, and if his dad can continually hit that spot, there could be a ton of balls sailing deep into the Queen City night on Monday off of his bat.
The only way to make a risk-free profit betting futures is to own a crystal ball or build a time machine. But futures betting is a source of entertainment for the second half of the season. Even if you don't keep interest in the baseball odds, you can follow your futures wagers until the last day of the season.
Need to fund your account before the big game but don't have your computer? No problem! BookMaker Sportsbook now offers a mobile betting cashier so you can deposit money directly from your smartphone. Don't miss out on getting paid because you couldn't bet. Click here, and deposit at BookMaker now! The Home Run Derby takes place at the Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati, OH. The slugging will get started on Monday, July 13 at 8:00 p.m. ET, and all of the action can be seen on FOX.
