Major League Baseball signed a bunch of new TV contracts this year.
As a result, the Home Run Derby is being carried exclusively on Netflix. If you don’t subscribe to Netflix, well, you’ll just have to follow along here.
Here are the eight participants:
Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper will certainly be the hometown favorites at Citizens Bank Park. Harper won the 2018 Home Run Derby as the hometown guy
in Nationals Park in Washington — with Schwarber finishing second. Schwarber also participated in 2022.
The format of the Derby has changed this year. Details in this MLB.com article; here are the basics:
Instead of trying to hit as many homers as possible during timed rounds, each of the eight Derby participants will start each round with a finite number of swings: 20 in Round 1, 15 in Round 2 and 15 again in the final round.
All swings will count against a player’s swing allotment, whether it results in a homer or not. However, a player who homers on his final swing of a round can keep swinging until he doesn’t hit one out.
The players with the top four home run totals from the first round will advance to the semifinals, where they’ll be seeded based on their first-round homer totals. They will face off head-to-head (No. 1 vs. No. 4 and No. 2 vs. No. 3) to determine the two finalists.
Got all that? Cubs fans can root for old friends and 2016 World Series champions, Schwarber and Willson Contreras, now a member of the Red Sox.
Enjoy the festivities!
