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ATLANTA — Dingers should be flying at steamy Truist Park for Monday night’s MLB Home Run Derby, and the dollars could particularly flow for three younger competitors.
A $1 million top prize is once again up for grabs in the competition, and for three of the eight players in the derby—the Rays’ Junior Caminero ($764,100), the Pirates’ Oneil Cruz ($785,000), and the Nationals’ James Wood ($764,600)—that figure is more than they’ll earn all season. Each is not yet eligible for arbitration or free agency.
Such has been the case with this event since 2019, when the league and MLB Players Association created the prize pool, in part as an incentive to attract top talent. Instead of drawing top star veterans such as the Yankees’ Aaron Judge and Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani, though, the Home Run Derby has become something of a young man’s competition.
While 2024 champion Teoscar Hernández prevailed in his ninth MLB season, prior winners such as Pete Alonso, Juan Soto, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. claimed the top check before much bigger salary dollars arrived.
The trio of younger players will compete in the 2025 derby against five more established players: the Twins’ Byron Buxton, Yankees’ Jazz Chisholm Jr., Braves’ Matt Olson, Mariners’ Cal Raleigh, and Brent Rooker of the A’s. Raleigh, in the midst of a breakout season and leading the majors with 38 home runs, is a slight betting favorite in the Derby, followed by Cruz.
The hot and humid environment at the outdoor Truist Park, with temperatures expected to still be near 90 degrees when the event starts at 8 p.m. ET, provides a setting that has not been seen in several years for the Home Run Derby. Last year’s event was held indoors at Globe Life Field in Texas, and the three years before that featured more temperate conditions in Seattle, Los Angeles, and Denver, respectively.
In addition to the $1 million prize for the derby winner, another $100,000 is available for the hitter with the longest home run. The runner-up wins $500,000, and the other six participants will each get $150,000.
Wood, for his part, said he has no life-altering plans if he wins the Derby.
“I might go to Waffle House,” Wood tells Front Office Sports, referring to the popular restaurant chain.
View From Above
ESPN, meanwhile, plans to incorporate a pair of golf-type drone cameras into its coverage of the derby Monday night, both in the main broadcast and an alternate, Statcast-driven one on ESPN2. Such an element was not possible with the domed ballpark in Texas last year, but it is aimed at providing enhanced views of ball flight. Overhead views such as this have become a staple of golf coverage across multiple networks. Drone cameras last year were only able to fly outside Globe Life Field.
The network will also be looking to regain some viewership momentum, as last year’s viewership of 5.45 million fell 11% from 2023, and was impaired by competing coverage of the 2024 Republican National Convention. ESPN will also have a live production of The Pat McAfee Show on Monday from The Battery mixed-use development that surrounds Truist Park.
“This obviously is one of our most-viewed events of the entire year,” ESPN SVP of sports production Mark Gross tells FOS regarding the Derby. “Our job is to document the event in every way that we can, and we think these drones will be a big enhancement to seeing the flight paths of the home runs and will aid our storytelling.”
