It’s MLB All-Star Break, but that doesn’t mean we have to sit by and twiddle our thumbs until Friday. Coors Lights are always in play, and there might be an edge to winning some in tonight’s Home Run Derby.
The Rules
If you haven’t watched the HR Derby in a while, you might be surprised at some of the recent rule changes. The biggest one is that there are no longer “outs” for batters; instead, each batter is given a time limit of four minutes to hit as many home runs as possible. And they don’t all compete against each other: They’re seeded by 2017 home run totals (although it seems as if the No. 1 seed is automatically given to the previous year’s winner now). Each batter must beat his competitor before moving on to the next stage.
The Contestants
Here are the contestants for the 2017 HR Derby and their place in the bracket:
More importantly, here are their odds to win as of Monday morning:
- Giancarlo Stanton: +200
- Aaron Judge: +200
- Cody Bellinger: +650
- Mike Moustakas: +1400
- Miguel Sano: +700
- Charlie Blackmon: +1400
- Justin Bour: +1400
- Gary Sanchez: +1200
Stanton and Judge are huge favorites in this contest — they have been among the most productive and owned players in 2017 (per our Trends tool and DFS Ownership Dashboard) — but how do favorites typically perform? Let’s dive into some of the historical data and see if we can spot some trends.
Historical Data and Trends
It’s a little tough to find historical odds for the HR Derby, so I went back as far as possible: 2009. Based on that data, we can look at the correlation between several different data points and see if we can identify any edges in the lines. First, it’s probably wise to see if Vegas odds have been good indicators of success. We can look at this in two ways: By the number of home runs in the derby and by finishing position. As it turns out, there’s been essentially zero correlation between odds and finishing home runs in the derby . . .
. . . or odds and finishing place:
Again, odds to win have not been predictive of HR Derby success over the last eight years, and that’s good to know because it means that there’s an edge. Let’s look at one more correlation — between odds to win and pre-ASB home runs. You might have noticed above that Sanchez has slightly better odds at +1200 than guys with more home runs like Blackmon and Bour (+1400), but is that an anomaly? Does Vegas largely price players according to their pre-ASB home run totals?
Not really. There’s likely a lot of public and fishy money on the HR Derby, and thus players who are fan favorites like Sanchez sometimes have high odds despite low HR totals on the season. Further, the favorites — in this case, Stanton and Judge — seem to get hammered despite the somewhat randomness of the actual event. For reference, here are the past winners and their odds before the event:
- 2016: Giancarlo Stanton, +400
- 2015: Todd Frazier, +450
- 2014: Yoenis Cespedes, +500
- 2013: Yoenis Cespedes, +350
- 2012: Prince Fielder, +450
- 2011: Robinson Cano, +800
- 2010: David Ortiz, +350
- 2009: Prince Fielder, +400
There hasn’t been a winner with odds at +1000 or higher, but there also haven’t been many players with odds that low since 2009. The Rockies’ Michael Cuddyer had the lowest odds at +1500 since 2009, and there have been only 15 out of 76 candidates since 2009 with odds at +1000 or lower — and that’s including the four this year in Sanchez, Blackmon, Bour, and Moustakas. In terms of odds, they are rather historically low tonight.
Unfortunately, we can’t really dive into Statcast data because it’s been available since only 2015; that’s too small of a sample to run correlations and take anything away. That said, it’s probably wise at least to see how this year’s contestants stack up in that regard:
The guys who hit the ball the hardest are definitely the two favorites in Stanton and Judge, along with Judge’s teammate in Sanchez, who blows away the competition in average home run distance, although it should be noted that he has only 13 in 2017 — easily the fewest of the group. Blackmon has easily the lowest average exit velocity on home runs, and it could be argued that his numbers are inflated by playing around half of his games at Coors Field.
On the topic of parks: Let’s take a look at tonight’s location and see if perhaps either righties or lefties have an easier route to hitting home runs. Per FanGraphs, here are the new dimensions for Marlins Park after they modified it a bit in 2016, bringing the wall in at centerfield and lowering the fences just a bit.
There doesn’t seem to be much of an edge for either righties or lefties, and that has been the case this season in terms of home runs:
Takeaways
The HR Derby seems to be somewhat random, so it could be wise simply to arbitrage the situation and take players with likable odds, whether those are Sano and Bellinger at +700 and +650 or perhaps Sanchez, who is at +1200 and has the best Statcast data despite having the fewest HRs. A batter with +1000 odds or lower hasn’t won the HR Derby in at least the last eight years, although historically guys don’t have odds that low. It seems as if the public is hammering Stanton — last year’s winner and at home in Miami — as well as Judge, who is one of the most prolific home run hitters in the history of baseball at his young age of 25. Both of them have consistently rated highly in our Models this year.
Indeed, those two will be popular betting options, and that’s likely why they have historically high odds at +200. A quick Google search will pull up a variety of articles today specifically talking about those two competitors. Here’s an example: “Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge is the Home Run Derby final the universe deserves.” Yeah, those two are probably the best home run hitters in the field, but at those odds perhaps the positive expected value move is to fade the public and bet some Coors Lights on guys down the list.
Good luck and enjoy! — and be sure to do some post-ASB research with the FantasyLabs Tools when MLB returns!
