Pick to Win the 2024 Home Run Derby

The Home Run Derby takes place in Arlington on Monday and after coming up short last season, New York Mets slugger Pete Alonso looks to take down the title of Home Run Derby champion for a third time.

Alonso is the most experienced participant in the field, partaking for a fourth time and seems to have learned from last season’s folly of changing his pitcher.

After using Mets pitching coach Aaron Myers in last year’s event, he’s reunited with former Mets bench coach Dave Jauss, who was his pitcher when Alonso won the event in 2021 in Colorado and in 2022 when the festivities were in Los Angeles.

Last season’s format also was much to blame for Alonso’s inability to get the three-peat, as he had to face Seattle Mariners slugger Julio Rodriguez in his hometown of Seattle in a head-to-head bracket format, and Rodriguez hit 41 home runs in their matchup, which is the most home runs in any round in the history of the Hone Run Derby.

This year, the format is to where the top half of the field of hitters advance in every round, with there being eight sluggers to start. The top four will advance to the next round, where the top two from the second round will then face off head-to-head in the final.

Additionally, instead of the derby being only timed, there is now both time and a swing allotment with a hitters round being done after either 40 pitches or three minutes, whichever comes first. To add to it, the bonus time element of 30 added seconds from past season for sluggers hitting multiple home runs of over 440 feet will now be allocated in three untimed outs, with an additional out being awarded for every ball of 425 feet or more being hit in that bonus time.

The new rules put an added weight on Jauss‘ ability to groove pitches into Alonso’s sweet spot and help maximize Alonso’s average home run distance of nearly 408 feet the past two seasons.

With the format change and Jauss back to groove pitches to Alonso, the Mets star will get the derby title four a third time.

The Play: Pete Alonso Derby Outright +350

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