2025 MLB All-Star Game Home Run Derby: Odds, Prediction
This year’s Home Run Derby features a field of eight headlined by big-league leader Cal Raleigh of the Seattle Mariners, although he’s not the favourite on the MLB odds. There are no Blue Jays competing.
Home Run Derby Betting Analysis
Some guys simply refuse to participate in the Home Run Derby because they are under the impression that the competition will really mess up their swings for the second half of the regular season. There is no statistical proof of that. But this year’s field is lacking in star power in terms of former active winners in the likes Aaron Judge, Bryce Harper, Pete Alonso, Juan Soto and Toronto’s Vladimir Guerrero Jr., the 2023 champion in Seattle. No Blue Jays are competing in 2025. No past Derby champion is, either.
This used to be a bracket-style format starting from Round 1 with the top seed facing No. 8, No. 2 vs. No. 7 and so on. But last year, MLB changed it to simply the top four leaders after Round 1 advance. In the first round, batters each have three minutes or 40 pitches (whichever comes first) to hit as many homers as possible. There is also a bonus period for each player that lasts until they record three outs (any swing that doesn’t result in a home run).
Then it goes to bracket style in the semis with No. 1 vs. No. 4 and No. 2 vs. No. 3. The two winners face off in the final. Players will have two minutes or 27 pitches in the semifinals and finals, and home run totals from Round 1 don’t carry over. Ties in the semifinals or finals are broken by a 60-second “swing-off” with no additional time added. We did have a “swing-off” in the 2024 semis with the Dodgers’ Teoscar Hernandez beating the Phillies’ Alec Bohm. Hernandez then went on to beat the Royals’ Bobby Witt Jr. in the final.
There are five American League hitters in this year’s field and three from the NL, yet both are -110 to be the league from which the winner emerges.
Hometown Boy Olson Now In Field
The biggest-name player in the field likely was 2023 NL MVP Ronald Acuna Jr., but he opened this season on the injured list recovering from a torn ACL and then has had some back soreness so he chose to withdraw and ensure good health for the second half. MLB wants the home crowd of any Home Run Derby engaged as possible, so the league went right to Acuna’s Atlanta teammate Matt Olson (+550) as the replacement.
It’s a big deal for the 31 year-old as he was born and raised in the city. He competed in the 2021 Derby in Denver and hit 23 homers, which is a very good total, in Round 1 but didn’t advance in his head-to-head matchup against Trey Mancini. Three players have won a Derby in their home park, last Bryce Harper when with Washington in 2018.
Pittsburgh Oneil Cruz is the +310 favourite and the ball generally rockets off his bat. The 6-foot-7 Cruz leads all qualified MLB players in average exit velocity this season, including a 122.9 mph laser in late May that was the hardest-hit batted ball, base hit and home run of the Statcast Era (since 2015).
Arguably the biggest individual story line of the first half has been Seattle’s Cal Raleigh (+360) as his 38 home runs are the most in franchise history and second-most in MLB history before the All-Star break behind 39 from Barry Bonds in 2001 when he finished with a record 73 on the season.
It’s the first Derby for Raleigh, who grew up about 150 miles from Atlanta in North Carolina. No catcher has ever won it and neither has a switch-hitter – Raleigh has not said for sure yet whether he will hit from both sides. The only player to switch-hit in the Derby was Adley Rutschman in 2023 for Baltimore, and he lost in Round 1.
Home Run Derby Prediction
It’s truly a home game for Atlanta’s Matt Olson (+550), and it certainly doesn’t hurt he knows Truist Park better than anyone in the field. Olson also has Derby experience. No Braves player has won it yet, so the franchise is overdue.
