2023 Home Run Derby Picks
Let me preface all of this with an obvious but important thing: the Home Run Derby is an incredibly high variance and unpredictable event. It is a blast to watch—especially if you are possibly winning money—but you should not be throwing more than a couple of units at all of your total ASG action. Anyone who recommends otherwise, is irresponsible and does not truly care about long term profits in gambling.
The next thing I want to say: the most likely outcome is that Pete Alonso takes home his 3rd HR Derby title tonight. Nobody takes it more seriously, nobody is more physically built for it, and nobody has as much experience in how best to maximize your time and the rules to optimize your HR output. But with that said, the odds reflect it, and with the toughest half of the bracket on his side (you could argue that Alonso, Vlad, J-Rod & Mookie are 4 of the 5 best in the contest), I can't justify that price.
I wanted to try and find some data-driven angles to identify a couple of value plays for my action, and that is what you are about to read. If you want to skip my nerdy analysis, you certainly can. Just scroll to the bottom. Seriously, I won't be offended.
Here is what I discovered from past derbies: Size Matters. With the new rules, this has proven even more paramount, as longevity of your power matters with each hitter needing to partake in 3 lightning rounds to come out on top. There have been 6 winners of the Derby under the current rules, all of them were at least 6'2" & weighed at least 210 lbs. So, go ahead and throw out Mookie Betts, Adolis Garcia, & Randy Arozarena. I love them all and think they will put on a great show, but I don't think they have the stamina to go 3 full rounds.
Another interesting stat since the new format started: Home Field Matters, sort of. 2 of the 6 winners did so at their home park, and both were also the two smallest winners in terms of overall weight. It's entirely possible that home field advantage got them over the hump at the end. There's extra adrenaline, the energy from (some of) your hometown fans, and there's the immeasurable value of being more used to hitting in that park than any of your competition. J-Rod has already checked 2 boxes. Plus, he already went toe-to-toe with Alonso once and came out on top, and he owns 2 of the top 5 highest single round scores.
Outside of sprinkling on J-Rod, I also want to get a share of Luis Robert. He has arguably the easiest overall path to the finals, and he may just have the best raw power of the entire field. A guy with 26 HRs in spite of a 30% K-rate shows you that he barrels the ball a ton when he isn't missing it. Guess what isn't a factor in a HR Derby? (Well, unless Luis Sierra starts throwing him curveballs). And speaking of Sierra, he is who throws batting practice to Robert already.
Outright Winner:
Julio Rodriguez, 0.1u (+450)
Luis Robert, 0.4u (+550)
Those are my 2 outright winner picks, and I have a couple more fun contrarian bets I am going to play: smaller hitters going UNDER their longest distance HR prop. T-Mobile Park has very small dimensions, so we will see a lot of HRs tonight, but it was built small due to how little the ball travels there. They are close to sea level (much less carry than places like Denver) and it is typically pretty cool at night (warmer weather helps the ball carry as well). It will be about 65º at the start of the Derby. Give me these Unders, 0.2u each:
Rutschman u460.5 (-115) He just hit a career-long 461' HR this weekend. It doesn't feel like a coincidence that this line is set right BELOW that. "Oh, he hit one 461' in a game, he has to easily clear that in a derby!"
Betts u459.5 (-115) He has not hit one beyond 426' all season, despite playing a series at Coors, and having a very HR-friendly environment at home where the ball carries much farther than league average due to temps and wind
Garcia u465.5 (-115) His season-long is 432', his career long is 453'. He has some impressive biceps, but his smaller overall stature does not lead to many full-on moonshot opportunities—just a lot of line drives on a rope.
Arozarena u467.5 (-115) Much like Garcia, he is shorter than you would expect, leading to less massive distance HRs. His season-long is 436' and he's never cleared 445'.
My outright winner odds are from BetUS. All of my distance odds are from Bovada. You may find much better juice if you shop around a bit on the main books.
