The Home Run Derby is one of the most popular sporting events of the summer in the US. It traditionally takes place the night before the MLB All-Star Game. This year’s Home Run Derby will go down on Monday, July 12 at Coors Field. Due to Denver being a mile above sea level, one can expect a barrage of dingers in this year’s Derby. Home Run Derby odds will be posted as soon as they are made available at the top US sportsbooks.

HOME RUN DERBY FIELD

Here is the home run derby field so far. We will add odds here when they are made available:

2021 HOME RUN DERBY DETAILS

The annual homage to the game’s most impactful in-game event, the Home Run Derby gathers eight of the game’s most prodigious sluggers to compete in a bracket-style, single-elimination tournament.

Participants outside of the defending champion are typically seeded based on their home run totals up to the date the final selections are made. In the event that a tie-breaker between two or more players is needed, the player with the most home runs since June 15 is awarded the seed in question, as per the current Collective Bargaining Agreement.

Some of the particulars of the 2021 Home Run Derby include:

• Date: Monday, July 12 at 8 p.m. Eastern
• Location: Coors Field – Denver, Colorado
• Where to watch: ESPN will offer the main telecast of the Home Run Derby. ESPN News will offer an alternate, more data-driven telecast that will include analysis on Statcast metrics.
• Prize pool:  Major League Baseball has announced the total prize pool as $2.5 million, which includes $1 million awarded to first place. The cumulative amount up for grabs and the top prize are the largest in the contest’s history.
• Defending champion: Pete Alonso (hit 57 home runs total in three rounds in the 2019 Derby)

HOME RUN DERBY RULES

The Home Run Derby has been the subject of multiple formats since its inception in 1985. The current iteration, largely in place since 2015, is as follows:

• Each player is matched up head-to-head against another based on the contest’s seeding structure.
• Each player has five minutes to hit as many home runs as possible.
• The winner of each head-to-head matchup advances, until a final winner is determined.
• If a tie occurs in any match-up, there are three sets of tiebreakers employed:

1. 1st tie breaker: A 90-second swing-off.
2. 2nd tie breaker: Best-of-3-swing swing-off.
3. 3rd tie breaker: Sudden-death swing-offs until a winner is determined.

• Rounds are currently four minutes in length.
• A player is also entitled to 30 seconds of bonus time if they hit at least two home runs of 440 feet or longer. The bonus time is awarded at the end of the four-minute round.
• Each batter is allowed one 45-second time-out during the first and semi-final rounds. They are awarded two in the finals, one of 45 seconds in duration and another that is 30 seconds in length.

WAGERING ON THE DERBY: A UNIQUE PROPOSITION

Wagering on the odds-on favorite to win the Home Run Derby has mostly been a losing bet for the last nine years. Data reflects that only two favorites since 2010 — then-Marlin Giancarlo Stanton in 2016 and Harper in 2019 — have actually taken home the crown.

Predicting who might come out on top is likely trickier than a conventional team-based bet due to the similarity in the talent levels between the majority of participants. In other words, there aren’t supposed to be any pushovers or tomato cans taking their hacks in the contest. Each of the invitees is part of the event in the first place due to how potent a bat they’ve been swinging up to that point in the season.

Listed odds reflect the probabilities of each player’s success in the eyes of the bookmakers/betting public, as usual. But, Derby lines might be at least a tad less predictive than your standard wagering scenario. The quality of pitches a player sees and his overall endurance come into play. So too does any potential injury situation a player may come into the contest with.

Then, as is the case during any game in the season, the setting also plays a role.

Stadiums with park factors more conducive to the long ball will naturally boost the upside of every participant to a certain degree. That alone could make the outcome even more difficult to pin down.

And, participants who happen find themselves in their home ballpark would certainly carry a certain edge. Their intimate knowledge of relevant stadium specs such as dimensions, wind angles, etc. would presumably serve as valuable tools when trying to rack up the round trippers.