312 HRs. 91 by Vlad! Inside Derby's numbers
The 2019 T-Mobile Home Run Derby was one for the ages. MLB's youth movement was the story at the start -- and it was the story at the finish.
A pair of rookie sensations, the Mets' Pete Alonso and the Blue Jays' Vladimir Guerrero Jr., duked it out in the final round of an epic Derby at Cleveland's Progressive Field on Monday night. When all was said and done, it was Alonso besting Vlad Jr. to claim the trophy. But that was only the conclusion to a jaw-dropping night at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario.
Here's the 2019 Home Run Derby by the incredible numbers.
312 home runs
• That's the most total homers in a Home Run Derby, ever. And it's the most by a mile. The previous record, set just last year, was 221 home runs. The 2019 Derby had passed that by midway through Round 2.
In other words, this year's Derby had exactly 91 homers more than last year's. Speaking of which ...
91 for Vladito (91!)
• Guerrero hit a staggering 91 home runs in his first Home Run Derby, smashing through the single-Derby home run record as the youngest participant in the contest's history. Even though the 20-year-old fell short in the final against Alonso, that's incredible. Vlad Jr.'s 91 home runs are 30 more than the previous record, Giancarlo Stanton's 61 in San Diego in 2016. Joc Pederson finished with 60 of his own on Monday, meaning he and Guerrero doubled the number of 60-homer Derbies in history in one night.
• How's this for a sign of the times? Guerrero's Hall of Fame father, Vlad Sr., participated in two Home Run Derbies in his career (2000 and '07, when he won the event with a young Vlad Jr. on the field) and totaled just 19 combined homers. Vlad Jr. participated in a different format from his father, as “outs” are no longer counted, but he still hit nearly five times as many dingers as his dad in one night alone.
• Guerrero's 91 homers are already tied with Todd Frazier (two Derbies) for the second-highest career Home Run Derby total. Only Pederson, who boosted his career total across two Derbies to 99 after Monday night, has compiled more in the event.
40-39… a showdown for the ages
• We'll be talking about Vlad vs. Joc in Round 2 for a long time. It was a slugfest that took regulation time, bonus time, a tiebreaker round, two swing-offs and 79 total home runs to decide. At the end of it all, it was Vlad Jr. still standing … by a single homer, 40-39. Yes, that's right -- Guerrero hit 40 home runs in a single round of the Derby -- and it was just barely enough.
Vlad Jr. and Joc went swing for swing the entire way. At the end of regulation and bonus time, they had each crushed 29 home runs … tying the single-round Derby record Vlad Jr. had just set in the first round. That forced a one-minute tiebreaker … and at the end of it, they were tied again, with each player tallying eight homers in the additional 60 seconds. So it went to a three-swing swing-off … and they each hit one more. Finally, in the second swing-off, Vlad Jr. outhomered Peterson, 2-1, to advance to the finals.
The nearly unbelievable final score for the round: Vlad Jr. 40, Pederson 39.
Nearly 25 miles of homers
• There were 24.8 miles of home runs hit in the 2019 Derby -- the 312 homers totaled 130,779 feet.
Vlad Jr. alone hit 7.3 miles worth of homers -- his 91 long balls totaling 38,641 feet. He hit 3.2 miles worth of home runs just in the 40-39 Round 2 slugfest with Pederson (16,911 feet).
29 homers in a round -- THREE separate times
• Making his much-hyped Derby debut, Guerrero Jr. put on a show. In his very first round, he belted a (temporarily) record-setting 29 homers, surpassing Josh Hamilton's single-round 28 from 2008 at Yankee Stadium. Of course, that was before the second-round fireworks.
• Hamilton set his record under a non-timed format. The single-round record in this current timed-round era (starting in 2015) was Stanton's 24 in Round 1 of the '16 Derby. So, Guerrero, Pederson and Ronald Acuna Jr. (25 in Round 1) combined to break Stanton's modern-era record four different times over the course of Monday's action.
2 for New York, New York
• Now for the winner. There are only two rookies to ever win the Home Run Derby outright, and both play in the Big Apple: the Yankees' Aaron Judge won in 2017, and now there's Alonso.
• The fan favorite in Queens is also the first Mets player to win the Derby outright. Darryl Strawberry was a co-champion in the Mets' World Series championship season in 1986, sharing the Derby title with Wally Joyner.
3 walk-offs for Polar Bear Pete
• Alonso walked off in all three rounds -- beating hometown favorite Carlos Santana with home run No. 14 in Round 1, Acuna with No. 20 in Round 2 and Vlad Jr. with a buzzer-beating No. 23 in the finals. Alonso earned bonus time in every round of the Derby; he never needed it.
2 rookies, 1 record-setting final round
• On a night when so many records fell, here's another: Both Alonso and Guerrero broke the former final-round record of 20 homers, set by Stanton back in 2016.
74 big-time bombs
• 440 feet is a long way to hit a baseball -- that's why hitting two 440-footers in a round earns players 30 seconds of bonus time. Well, in the 2019 Derby, there were 74 of them total.
• Vlad Jr. led the way with 25 home runs of at least 440 feet -- more than a third of the 74 across the eight-player field, and more than a quarter of his personal 91-homer Derby total. Some context: Josh Bell entered the All-Star break leading the Majors with seven 440-plus-foot homers.
• Alonso and Acuna were next with 15 440-plus footers apiece, followed by Pederson and Matt Chapman with seven, Bell with four and Santana with one. Alex Bregman didn't hit any 440-footers, but distance has never been his game.
42 rocket shots
• 110-plus mph is the extreme end of exit velocity. In this year's Derby, 42 home runs reached that threshold. Alonso was best in exit velocity -- no surprise, since he has two of the MLB season's three hardest homers. Polar Bear Pete hit 15 homers 110 mph or harder in the Derby. Eight of those came in the final round alone, including his Derby-winning 112 mph walk-off shot.
Vlad Jr. was next with 10 homers hit 110-plus mph, then Acuna with eight, Bell with six, Pederson with two, Chapman with one and Santana and Bregman with none.
488 feet, 114 mph, 42 and 17 degrees
• Those are the Home Run Derby superlatives -- the longest home run, hardest home run, highest home run and lowest home run.
Longest HR: 488 feet -- Vlad Jr. (Rd. 2)
Hardest HR: 114 mph -- Vlad Jr. (Rd. 2)
Highest HR launch angle: 42° -- Pederson (Rd. 1)
Lowest HR launch angle: 17° -- Vlad Jr. (2x)
5 longest, 5 hardest
• The 5 longest HRs of the 2019 Derby
- 488 feet -- Vlad Jr. (Rd. 2)
- 477 feet -- Chapman (Rd. 1)
- 476 feet -- Vlad Jr. (Rd. 1)
- 473 feet -- Chapman (Rd. 1)
- 472 feet -- Vlad Jr. (Rd. 1)
• The 5 hardest HRs of the 2019 Derby
- 114 mph -- Vlad Jr. (Rd. 2)
2-T) 113 mph -- Alonso (Final)
2-T) 113 mph -- Alonso (Final)
4-T) 112 mph -- Alonso (3x), Vlad Jr. (3x), Bell
20 homers? No sweat.
• The first four years of the Derby's new timed format, which began in 2015, featured a combined three 20-homer first-round performances (Stanton in '16, Judge and Justin Bour in '17). We saw that total equaled Monday night, when Guerrero (29), Acuna (25) and Pederson (21) all eclipsed 20 dingers nice and early.
• Overall, this year's field hit 20-plus homers in eight separate trips to the plate, surpassing the six such rounds recorded under the current format from 2015-18.
149 dingers, in a flash
• We knew the total Derby record was under attack after this year's eight-slugger field combined for 149 homers in the first round, shattering the previous first-round record of 128 set in 2017.
25.26 years
• That was the average age of this year's Derby field, the youngest in history. Vlad Jr. was the youngest-ever individual Derby contestant at 20 years, 114 days old. And Alonso is the fifth-youngest winner in Derby history at 24 years, 213 days old. Plus there was Acuna, at just 21 years and 203 days of age. It's safe to say the kids can bring the pop.