Photo by Gene Wang/Getty Images
This ended up coming down to the final swing and the final involved two guys who weren’t exactly favored to be there, either. There were plenty of twists and turns in this year’s Derby.
In a night where it was seemingly wise to expect the unexpected, it was Teoscar Hernández from the Los Angeles Dodgers who wound up becoming MLB’s Home Run Derby champion for 2024. Indeed, just one season after his good buddy Vladimir Guerrero Jr. won the Derby, Hernández joined his pal in the pantheon of Derby winners by hitting a grand total of 49 homers on the night.
In our primer post for the event, I stated that it would’ve been totally feasible for the favorites to deliver underwhelming performances in their respective debuts in the Home Run Derby and I personally chose to pick my winner from one of the three lower-ranked underdogs. As it turned out, that ended up being spot-on — Home Run Derby regular Pete Alonso finished next-to-last in the first round with 12 homers, Gunnar Henderson (and his Scooby-Doo bat) finished in last with 11, Marcell Ozuna came up a couple of dingers short of advancing to the next round and hometown hero Adolis García was unable to make it into the semis.
Instead, we ended up with Alec Bohm setting the tone with 21 home runs to start off the event in order to earn the first seed. Jose Ramírez made up for his injury-plagued appearance in the 2022 Home Run Derby by matching Bohm’s 21 dingers. Bobby Witt Jr. followed up Alec Bohm by swatting 20 taters (despite the fact that his brother-in-law James Russell was tossing some pitches nearly eye-level to Witt) and then Teoscar Hernández mashed 19 homers in order to slide into the semis. If you were rooting for the underdog then Monday night was your night.
In fact, the upsets continued for the rest of the night. Once the semifinals rolled around, Jose Ramírez went through a pair of droughts that ended up costing him to the tune of hitting just 12 homers. Meanwhile, Bobby Witt Jr. was once again able to take a bunch of high-and-nearly wayward pitches (for the Home Run Derby at least) and send them flying for 15 dingers in the semis. In both the first round and the semis, Witt had a relatively slow start but then he called timeout and proceeded to finish strong.
On the other half of the four-man bracket, Alec Bohm and Teoscar Hernández ended up going to a swing-off after both batters finished off their semifinal round with 14 homers. Hernandez seemingly emptied the tank in grandiose fashion in order to move his tally to 16 in the second round. Alec Bohm got one over the fence but kept it inside the park with his other two swing, which meant that it was Dodger Blue vs. Royal Blue to decide who would be this season’s Derby Champ.
Credit has to be given to both Teoscar Hernández and Bobby Witt Jr. for giving the baseball world a thrilling ending for the Final and the best moment of the night that didn’t involve the National Anthem. Despite seemingly being gassed after his intense efforts in the semis and also having to go first (but only after Michael Buffer set the tone for the final showdown with what was very surely an expensive introduction), Hernández used his deliberate pace to hit another 14 homers. It initially looked like that would be enough for Hernández to win after Witt got off to another slow start.
However, Witt once again found his stride after the timeout and got into the bonus round of at least bringing about a final swingoff. It sure seemed like Bobby Witt Jr. had done it and brought about the swingoff once his final swing of the night went into the air. Instead, the ball dramatically died at the warning track and the Los Angeles Dodgers had their first Home Run Derby winner in franchise history.
While this year’s Derby may not have gotten off to a fast start, things certainly got more exciting as the night went on and we were certainly given a treat of a final round in order to round things out. Again, Bobby Witt Jr. deserves plenty of credit for coming in and doing his best to pull off the upset. However, you could also easily claim that Teoscar Hernández winning is a pretty big upset in its own right. While Hernández only trails Shohei Ohtani for homers, I feel like it’s pretty safe to assume that fans usually think of Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Will Smith when it comes to the Dodgers and power hitting.
Now that he’s lifted the Home Run Derby trophy, Teoscar Hernández’s profile should at least go up a couple of ticks. The same goes for Bobby Witt Jr. as well, who has been one of the most exciting players in baseball and hopefully now we’ll start to see more fans pay attention to both finalists in the future. If you don’t believe me about just how fun things got at the end then just ask the guy who came up agonizingly short of at least keeping the Derby going for a few more swings:
