Major League Baseball announced Sunday that the league is changing the format for the annual competition held the night before the All-Star game.
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Starting with eight players, the field will be whittled down one-by-one in three single-elimination rounds. The length of the home runs will be tracked by MLB Advanced Media’s Statcast technology, which is publicly available for the first time this year.
It also will seed the field based on 2015 home run totals through July 7, with the better seed batting second.
The Home Run Derby begins at 8 p.m. on Monday, July 13th, at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati and will be broadcast live by ESPN.
Batters can earn bonus time for tape measure shots.
In each bracket, the higher seed will hit second.
Can Yoenis Cespedes win the Derby again with the new format? While these are not bad attempts at making the Home Run Derby more appealing, they won’t make it more popular. Timers start with release of the first pitch.
Gone are the lengthy rounds that featured players not swinging at four or five pitches for every one that they swung at as well as players taking water breaks in the midst of a long hot streak at the plate. The two bonuses are not mutually exclusive. If two home runs pass 420 feet, the batter will get an extra minute, and if a home run goes past 475 feet, the batter will get an extra 30 seconds.
The person with the most home runs advances to the next round and tie breakers are determined by a 90 second round.
Each batter can use one 45-second time-out per round to collect his thoughts, take a breath, etc.
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Ties in any round broken by 90-second swing-off with no stoppage of time or additional time added; if a tie remain after the swing-off, batters will engage in successive three-swing swing-offs until there is a victor.
