OPINION: The Home Run Derby Tonight And Every Night

Monday night marks the return of baseball’s most marketable event: the Home Run Derby. Among the mix for the night’s clobbering is Miami’s monster Giancarlo Stanton, whom many expect to face off against one of the two Baby Bombers, Aaron Judge or Gary Sanchez, in the competition’s final. All three players are expected to launch at least fifty balls each into the seats of Marlins Park, one of the most hitter friendly stadiums in all of baseball. But the barrage of balls into the stands won’t feel at all unfamiliar to baseball fans this year because the 2017 season is on pace to have more home runs than any other season before it.

The 2017 baseball season has been one long series of home run after home run. Currently, as a league, players are on pace to hit 6,117 home runs, 424 more home runs than were hit in the 2000 season, the height of the steroid era and the current record-breaking year.

There are several accepted factors contributing to this swath of homers. One, the widespread usage of advanced analytics allows batters to know exactly where and what they should swing at in order to send a ball out. Two, players have changed their off-season and weight lifting habits in a way that has made them stronger than previous eras of baseball players – some also credit these training regimens to the rise in injury. Three, because of the increase in the velocity of pitches balls are simply being hit harder.

In addition to those three widely accepted factors, many are also starting to support the notion that the hitter’s approach at the plate has fundamentally changed. Rather than swinging down at the ball or pushing the barrel of the bat even through the strike zone, hitters are now swinging up on the ball, trying their damnedest to send it into the air.

“Hit it hard, hit it in the air,” the Cubs’ young star Kris Bryant‘s father Mike Bryant told The New York Times recently. “We want them to swing aggressively, we want them to make a big move forward into the ball, transfer their weight forward. Swing up, don’t chop down. Barrel below the hands at contact, not above. ‘Don’t hit the top of the ball, don’t throw your hands, don’t stay back’ – all the phrases that you’ve heard for years and years are totally the wrong things to teach.”

If a home run is the goal, than Bryant is right – his son has 83 through 388 career games. But should it be?

This approach to hitting is one that endorses an all-or-nothing approach. In addition to the increase in home runs, strikeouts are also on the rise. This means that while runs may come in bunches, the runs needed to win ballgames, get pushed to the back burner.

Of the teams hitting the most home runs, four of the top ten teams currently have a record below .500, suggesting that hitting the ball out doesn’t mean much for a win. Ten years ago, in 2007, only one team finished in the top ten for home runs with a sub .500 record.

Home runs, as fun as they are – and they are fun! – have seemingly become a distraction, diverting attention from the larger, and largest goal: winning.

Although I know it will never happen, let’s hope that tonight all these players get their big swings out of their system and return to the field after the All-Star break with a more balanced approach at the plate.