Major League Baseball has finalized the eight-person field for next Monday’s Home Run Derby. The full list of participants:
Alonso and García return from last year’s event. The New York first baseman is in the event for the fifth consecutive time. Alonso won back-to-back times in 2019-21 (there was no Derby in 2020 because of the pandemic) but has successively been knocked out by Julio Rodríguez in the last two events. García was dropped by Randy Arozarena in the first round last year. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. won the event but decided not to try to defend his title.
This year’s festivities are taking place at Arlington’s Globe Life Field. Under the collective bargaining agreement, the Derby winner will receive $1MM. The runner-up takes home $500K, while every other participant receives $150K. The player who hits the longest home run wins $100K.
This year’s event involves a few rule changes, as Buster Olney of ESPN recently wrote. The first round no longer features head-to-head matchups. The top four home run hitters will move to the second round, with the longest homer serving as a tiebreaker. MLB is also limiting hitters to 40 swings per round and is changing the bonus round from a clock to a limit of three outs (four if a player hit a 425-foot homer in the bonus round).
