MLB Continues To Make It Impossible To Follow And Watch The Home Run Derby With Their Current Rapid Fire Rules

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The Home Run Derby should be a simple production in theory. Pick some big boppers and let us watch them hit a bunch of homers really far. At this point in the summer we want simple things. We're here to watch balls blasted into the night sky. So why do we still have no clue what's happening when this event comes around every year? 

For whatever reason the powers that be decided the old format —10 outs — was not good enough despite it being damn near perfect. 

Let's pause for a second and acknowledge the nostalgic ESPN there. Boy does that bring back memories when the network was worth a damn to tune into every night. Goddammit. 

Back to the Derby, the people who put on the event I guess decided they wanted more homers in the competition and thus added the clock. Initially your pitcher could not deliver the next ball until the previous hit had landed, but that just led to certain players cough cough Pete Alonso skating the rules and practically going rapid fire without consequence. They eventually adjusted the rules to scrap that and just make it a few minutes of chaos. 

The problem with that is there's no way to properly televise what's happening. You've got Ravech and Eduardo Perez just screaming and laughing at every ball in the air with no rhyme or reason as we watch on a split screen, unsure which swing we're even looking at. We see swings and balls landing, but have no clue if they're connected. A 513 foot, 118 mph missile from Oneil Cruz is immediately moved on from because three balls have been hit by the time the distance pops up on the screen. Back in the day the place would have shut down if a nuke like this was launched. 

While it's cool to have a guy get in a groove like Junior Caminero and blast out five consecutive dingers, it just makes for an overall poor product that could easily be better. 

Before you tell me to watch the ESPN 2 alternate broadcast, let's also bring up that it's like a full minute and a half before and doesn't show the ball landing in the crowd. If you're here for stats and ball trajectory that's your thing, but I'm looking for contact and crowd reaction as I see where the ball lands. 

Speaking of numbers, what happened to swing offs? It's a home run derby and we're advancing a guy over .08 of an inch? I know Cal Raleigh is the darling of the sport right now, but come on. There's also a million dollars on the line and Rooker gets knocked out for that? 

The way I see it there are two very clear paths to go down if we're going to fix this thing. 

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1) Return to the 10 outs format. We got a little taste of this last night. After your three or two minutes were up, you received three outs with the possibility of a bonus out if you smashed one 425 feet. I thought that bonus out should be harder to achieve by the way, but that's splitting hairs. Funny enough, it felt the easier to follow last night when we were in the outs portion of the contest. The pushback with going back to outs is you're going to see significantly less homers throughout the night. The trade-off will be a watchable/better product of a Home Run Derby. 

2) Do what you did last night, except fully enforce the rule where the pitcher has to wait for the ball to land before he delivers the next ball. I don't care if you need to have a red light green light situation behind the hitter so he knows when to throw or a man out there with a gun threatening him if he violates the rules, but make it so he must wait and slow things down a bit. That gives us a chance to breathe and watch each ball fly out. 

Or…you could continue to not listen to us and deliver a shit product that most people detest. Will I keep watching? For sure,I have a tiny brain and there's nothing else on. It just doesn't seem that difficult to give us a watchable Home Run Derby yet MLB keeps finding ways to avoid that. 

P.S. This kid ROBBING Caminero of a homer was preposterous. I can't tell if I loved it or if he should have been immediately thrown in jail. I thought these kids were out there to poorly judge fly balls and we've got Torii Hunter out here. 

P.P.S. Loved how Jazz went up there hitting line drives, not trying to fuck up his swing, and stayed healthy. That's my responsible king who was there for the good times and vibes.