We now know the eight competitors who will square off in the 2017 Home Run Derby at Marlins Park, which goes down on Monday, July 10. Here's a look ...
Charlie Blackmon of the Rockies, Mike Moustakas of the Royals round out HR Derby field. Stanton, Judge, Sanchez, Bellinger, Bour, Sano.
— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) July 4, 2017
Under the format implemented prior to the 2015 Derby, each player will be seeded in a single-elimination, eight-player bracket. Batters will have four minutes in each round to hit as many homers as they can. Each batter gets one 45-second timeout in each of the first two rounds. Competitors can get time added to their clock based on home run distance (last year, you got an additional 30 seconds for each homer of at least 440 feet). Ties will be broken by a 60-second "swing-off."
Last year, Derby participants were seeded according to their home run totals for that season. Let's assume that holds and seed the eight competitors according to their current 2017 home run tallies ...
| 2017 HR | Career HR | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Aaron Judge
NYY RF
| 27 | 31 | ||
Cody Bellinger
LAD LF
| 24 | 24 | ||
Mike Moustakas
KC 3B
| 22 | 103 | ||
Giancarlo Stanton
MIA RF
| 21 | 229 | ||
Miguel Sano
MIN 3B
| 20 | 63 | ||
Charlie Blackmon
COL CF
| 17 | 91 | ||
Justin Bour
MIA 1B
| 18 | 57 | ||
Gary Sanchez
NYY C
| 13 | 33 |
These are subject to change, of course, since we've got at least a couple of days before the bracket is officially unveiled. Right now, Judge is in line to face his teammate in the first round. As well, Stanton -- the 2016 Derby champ -- is in line to face hard-hitting Sano in what's probably the most compelling first-round encounter. Again, all this is assuming nothing changes in the home run rankings and that MLB adheres to the way they seeded the Derby last season.
Whatever comes out of the wash, this should be appointment viewing.
