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The 2017 Home Run Derby took place on Monday night, with New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge edging Minnesota Twins third baseman Miguel Sano in the finals to take the crown. The semifinals pitted Sanchez vs. Twins Sano and Judge vs. Dodgers rookie Clay Bellinger. Judge, the last hitter to bat in the first round, had to top Marlins first baseman Justin Bour in a ridiculous head-to-head battle. Bour cranked 22 home runs, feeding off the energy of the home town Miami crowd. MLB announced earlier today that teammates Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez will be participants in MLB's 2017 Home Run Derby.
For reference, MLB.com has Aroldis Chapman's average fastball at 98.2 mph. That means Sano has been hitting the average ball off his bat at a faster pace than a Chapman fastball – that's insane. No other hitter is within two miles per hour of Sano, with Aaron Judge coming in second at 96.2 miles per hour. What follows is a dream bracket, eight players in their four first-round matchups, one matchup per slide. If you recall, the Derby is now set up such that two hitters square off in a round, getting four minutes of running time to hit as many home runs as they can with limited timeouts .
How can I watch the MLB Home Run Derby live?
There you have it Major League Baseball, your perfect Home Run Derby lineup is set, it's on you guys now to get them to sign up. As for Harper, you don't need to be sold on him any more. He has 15 homers, a .644 slugging percentage, and an actual lion's mane attached to his skull – three prerequisites for any great Home Run Derby participant. Plus, if we just use Bumgarner's teammate connections to have Hunter Strickland act as Harper's pitcher for the Derby, we could see some real fireworks. Gary Sanchez, the No. 8 seed, is first in his matchup with No. 1 seed Giancarlo Stanton. The hometown slugger needs to hit 17 home runs to tie and 18 to advance past Sanchez.
As he did in batting practice, Judge clipped the roof with a drive. Because it did not count, Judge was told he had only tied Bour with five seconds remaining. He easily cleared the center-field wall with his final swing. "I had no pressure going into it. I'm a rookie," Judge said.
MLB Home Run Derby 2017: Live Updates, Results and Highlights
Stanton is the top seed, with Judge on the opposite side of the bracket as the No. 2 seed. And Judge faced a significant challenge before he even stepped to the plate, watching from the batting cage as Bour put 22 on the board. The 6-foot-7, 282-pound Judge responded with 23, including a 501-foot blast that cleared the home run sculpture in left-center field. Eight players participated in the derby in a bracket-style, single-elimination timed event.
Only Giancarlo Stanton has participated in the Derby before. Earlier today, MLB announced that both MLB home run leader Aaron Judge and teammate Gary Sanchez, will be participating in this year’s contest. Miami Marlins slugger Giancarlo Stanton will again be participating. Stanton won last year’s contest in impressive fashion, hitting 61 home runs over three rounds.
Home Run Derby bracket
Hagerstown's outfielder was drafted by the Nationals in the fifth round out of New Mexico State last year, becoming the second-highest pick in the school's history. Neuse also represents the Suns and has six long balls so far this season. The 22-year-old was a second-round pick in the 2016 MLB Draft from the University of Oklahoma.
Sanchez, up to the plate first as the lower seed, put on an absolute show to remind everyone of what kind of slugger he was last season. Each hitter has one of the top five home runs by distance this season , and the two both have left the yard at least a dozen times in 2017. Johnson leads the league with 13 homers after he had just one in his first professional season in 2016.
With the amount of long ball specialists we have floating around the league right now, there's no excuse for failing to put together the most loaded field in the history of the Derby. There's just over a month until Major League Baseball takes a four-day break for All-Star festivities. Chief among these All-Star festivities will be the Home Run Derby.
Joey Gallo is no slouch when it comes to exit velocity, however. The Major League Baseball All-Star festivities continue Monday at Marlins Park in Miami with the 2017 Home Run Derby. Hometown players Giancarlo Stanton and Justin Bour are part of the eight-man field that also includes New York Yankees phenom Aaron Judge.
Stanton won the 2016 Home Run Derby by hitting 20 home runs in the final round to defeat 2015 champion Todd Frazier. Frazier won the derby in the first year of the competition's new format, in which contestants compete in a single-elimination, three-round bracket with timed rounds. The 2017 MLB Home Run Derby will feature plenty of fresh faces.
"I think I still had the 30-second bonus left, so I really didn't have any worries," Judge said. An anticipated matchup between Judge and hometown hero Giancarlo Stanton of the Marlins never materialized, as last year's champion was knocked out in the first round by Gary Sanchez, 17-16. It will definitely be a show, all of Aaron Judge's bombs this season seem to break records he continues to set.
The winner moves on and faces another one-on-one matchup in the semifinals and the same goes for the final. It's a bit different than the Derby we grew up with, but it is nice in that it adds plenty of drama to even the first round. On April 22, he set the pace for the league with a 462-foot, 116.1-mph home run that was the furthest and hardest-hit home run of the season at the time. That velocity has been topped twice since, and of course one of those times was by Gallo himself, who left the yard at 116.3 mph on May 29 against the Tampa Bay Rays.
"I try to take everything one day at a time. That's what's helped me along this first half of the year," Judge said. "I have had wonderful people help me out through the years. And I can't thank them enough for where I'm at right now." Judge's 23 first-round homers marked the third-best round in Home Run Derby history, trailing only Josh Hamilton's 28 in 2008 and Bobby Abreu's 24 in 2005. "He's a fantastic coach and a better person," Judge said. Both Judge and Sanchez opted to have their regular batting-practice pitcher, Danilo Valiente, toss to them in Miami. Judge said that the 51-year-old Valiente has a knack for finding the barrel of his bat.
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