Home Run Derby: Start time, participants, bracket, how to watch and stream

For just the third time in 15 years, Phillies fans will have someone to root for in the Home Run Derby.

Third baseman Alec Bohm will take center stage at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, his first home run derby since entering the majors in 2020. He’ll also start for the National League in Tuesday’s All-Star game.

Not known as a power hitter, Bohm has 11 home runs this season, the fewest among Derby competitors but the most he’s ever had entering the All-Star Break. The most home runs he’s hit in a season was 20 last year for the Phillies. As my colleague Scott Lauber pointed out, Bohm has been one of baseball’s best hitters, with 70 RBIs entering the All-Star break and a .976 OPS with runners in scoring position. He’s also cut down his strikeout rate from 26.6% in 2021 to 13.7% this season.

“He has such a good swing to all fields. He never looks rattled or overwhelmed with the at-bat,” Phillies slugger Bryce Harper said. “The older he gets, the better he gets — backside power, pull power, things like that.”

Two Phillies players have won the Derby — Bobby Abreu in 2005 and Ryan Howard in 2006. Kyle Schwarber didn’t make it out of the first round in 2022, and Rhys Hoskins finished third in 2018, losing to Schwarber — then a member of the Chicago Cubs — in the second round.

It’s the first time the Derby has been held at Globe Life Field, the home of the Texas Rangers since 2020. Their previous home, The Ballpark in Arlington, hosted the Derby in 1995, with Frank Thomas taking home the title.

Here’s everything you need to know to watch or stream this year’s Home Run Derby:

The 2024 MLB Home Run Derby is scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. Eastern and will air live on ESPN.

The Derby will stream live on ESPN+ and on the ESPN app, though only for cable subscribers. MLB.TV will also stream the Derby, though the subscription service is hardly worth it for Phillies fans in the Philadelphia market due to its blackout rules.

The Derby can also be streamed on a host of services that have ESPN, including FuboTV, Hulu with Live TV, DirecTV Stream, Sling TV, and YouTube TV.

Calling his eighth Home Run Derby for ESPN is Karl Ravech, who will broadcast the competition alongside Eduardo Perez and retired third baseman Todd Frazier, a South Jersey native who won the Derby in 2015.

“I dreamed about playing in the Major Leagues, but I also love commentating and pretending to be a broadcaster,” Frazier said in a recent conference call. Calling the Derby for the first time is “a huge opportunity for me, and I can’t wait to get in the box with these guys and scream and yell and laugh and see how far these guys hit the ball.”

The network will also offer a Statcast telecast on ESPN2 with Kevin Brown, Jessica Mendoza, and MLB Statcast analyst Mike Petriello.

Thanks to a rules tweak, there are no predetermined seeds and no bracket heading into the first round of the Derby. The participants are:

This year’s Derby will look a bit different, thanks to new rules.

For starters, there are no predetermined seeds heading into the first round of the competition. Instead, all eight batters will compete, with the top four moving on to the semifinals.

From there it shifts back to a single-elimination bracket event with two rounds. During the semifinal round, each batter has three minutes (or a cap of 40 pitches, whichever comes first) to belt out as many home runs as they can. During the final round, the time is reduced to two minutes per batter, or up to 27 pitches.

Bonus pitches will also be different. Each player will get bonus pitches until they record three outs, and if hit a home run of at least 425 feet within the bonus period, it’s extended until they record a fourth out.

Hitters are entitled to one 45-second timeout in each round, though that doesn’t extend into a batter’s bonus time.

Toronto Blue Jays first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. topped the field last season, edging out Tampa Bay Rays outfielder Randy Arozarena in the finals by just two home runs. Guerrero Jr. hit 72 of those home runs, the fifth most in Derby history, but not enough to break his own record of 91 home runs set in 2019.

There were 341 home runs belted out at Dodger Stadium last year, the most in the history of the competition.

The Home Run Derby dates back to 1985, and just one player has managed to win the competition three times — Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr.

For the third-straight season, New York Mets first baseman Pete Alonso is looking to match Griffey’s record. Alonso won the Derby in 2019 and 2021, but fell to Julio Rodríguez in the second round of last year’s competition.

Only two other players have won two Derbys — Prince Fielder (2009 and 2012) and Yoenis Céspedes (2013 and 2014).

In the opening round, if multiple players hit the same number of home runs, the tiebreaker will go to whomever knocked out the longest home run.

In the event of a tie once the second round has begin, the top two batters will face off in a 60-second swing-off. If a tie remains after that, hitters battle in successive three-swing swing-offs until there is a winner.

There have been just two ties in Derby history — Vladimir Guerrero Jr. edged out Joc Pederson in the third tiebreaker in 2019, while Juan Soto topped Shohei Ohtani in the first round of the swing-off in 2021.

The winner of the Derby takes home $1 million, while the runner up gets $750,000.