1/8/2023 0 Comments Home run derby 2021During that bonus time, the players will be swinging at special magenta balls that promote the event’s sponsor. Each player gets one 45-second timeout per round for use in that regulation period, and for some reason related to the event’s sponsorship, everybody also gets 30 seconds of bonus time per round, with those who hit a drive of at least 475 feet during their round receiving another 30 seconds. Basically, it’s a nod to how taxing this will be to do at altitude, and it will also make for a tighter show.īeyond that basic block of time, there are a couple of wrinkles. The competition will be an eight-man, single elimination bracket that uses timed rounds, though this year, those rounds have been trimmed from four minutes to three for the quarterfinals and semifinals, and to two minutes for the finals. Just as there was no All-Star Game last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was no Home Run Derby, but this one will pick up the same format used from 2015-19 - a format that has done wonders for the watchability of this spectacle. Via Statcast, on those hard-hit fly balls at Coors, righties’ shots have averaged 395 feet, compared to 391 feet for lefties. According to our park factors, when it comes to homers righties have a two-point advantage over lefties (111-109). It’s worth noting that Coors Field’s outfield distances are asymmetrical, measuring 347 feet down the left field line and 390 to left center, compared to 350 down the right field line and 375 to right center - albeit with a 16-foot-6 fence in right-center and right, compared to just eight feet in left, save for the left field corner, where it’s 13 feet. The good news is that at Coors Field, that downturn won’t matter via Statcast, this year’s hard-hit fly balls are averaging 393 feet - 7.3% further - and that’s with the humidor. That was deemed Too Many Homers, and after dropping by 8% from 2019 to ’20, per-game home run rates have fallen another 7.85% this year, to 1.18 per team per game. That decreased distance is despite this year’s hard-hit fly balls having the highest average exit velocity of the Statcast era at 101.2 mph they averaged 101 mph in 2019, the year that home runs peaked with an average of 1.39 per team per game. The average distance of a hard-hit fly ball - that is, one hit with an exit velocity of 95 mph or greater - is 366 feet, which is up five feet from the shortened 2020 season but down nine feet relative to ’19, the year those distances peaked. If there’s a downside to the pending fireworks show, it’s that the new baseball MLB introduced this year isn’t carrying quite as far as years past. If you have any sustained interest in the event, this is the bucket list location for a Derby, and if that’s not enough to juice this competition, MLB has made clear the balls themselves won’t be stored in the humidor prior to the festivities, theoretically resulting in drives of even greater distance. Politics aside, the biggest upside to Major League Baseball’s decision to move this year’s All-Star Game from Atlanta to Denver is that for the first time in 23 years, the Home Run Derby will be held at Coors Field, where baseballs fly further than any other major league venue due to the mile-high altitude.
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