benaikey

I’m gonna get straight to the point on this one – I have a serious beef with the state of the Home Run Derby. The scoring system is horribly flawed. Don’t believe me? Then take a look at this.

Let’s use last night’s Home Run Derby as an example. For those not familiar with the spectacle, I’ll give a quick run-down of the rules. Eight men compete, four from the AL and four from the NL. The point is to hit home runs. Each swing that does not produce a home run counts as an out. Once you’ve got 10 outs, it’s the next player’s turn. Simple enough right?

This is where controversy rears its ugly head. There are three rounds, each of which cuts the field in half. Home runs carry over from Round 1 to Round 2, but not to Round 3.

Does that not make sense to anyone else or am I going crazy? Either have a running total for the entire competition or don’t let any totals carry over.

Anyway, back to last night’s Derby for my example. The participants were Prince Fielder, Albert Pujols, Ryan Howard, Adrian Gonzales, Nelson Cruz, Brandon Inge, Carlos Pena, and Joe Mauer. The first round had Howard, Cruz, Howard, and Pujols advance, with Pujols having to defeat Pena and Mauer in a swing-off. Personally, I like the tie-breaker employed, but that’s besides my point.

Going into the second round, in which the home runs carry over, Fielder and Cruz had 11, Howard had 7, and Pujols had 5. In the second round, Howard led the way with 8 home runs, Fielder and Pujols hit 6, and Cruz hit just 5. However, since the running totals had Fielder at 17, Cruz at 16 (in spite of an inferior second round), and Howard at 15 (the most consistent of any of the four competitors to this point), Ryan Howard had to take a seat.

Did the lightbulb turn on inside anyone’s head just now? The guy that had the best total of the whole round didn’t get to move on to the finals, and the guy with the worst total of the round got to advance because he had a better overall total. Who really thinks that’s fair?

Remember last year’s memorable Derby during the last season ever at Old Yankee Stadium? I know you do. Josh Hamilton utterly destroyed the competition, hitting an unheard of 28 home runs in the first round alone. With the system of a running total for the first two rounds, he didn’t need to put any effort at all into Round 2. To his credit, his finals opponent, Justin Morneau, didn’t do half bad himself. He drove 8 long balls in the first round and 9 in the second, setting up the finals as Morneau vs. Hamilton.

And here’s where everything goes wrong. Morneau wins the Home Run Derby by a final round total of 5-3. Excuse me if I’m out of line here, but if you ask who won last year’s Derby, most people will (incorrectly) say Josh Hamilton. Looking at the totals for the whole competition, he would have. Hamilton hit 35, and Morneau hit just 22.

Does anyone out there believe Morneau really deserved to win when his 3 round total was less than Hamilton’s first round total? I didn’t think so.

Here’s the point I’m trying to make: only carrying over one round is going to cheat players out of a possible victory if they don’t have a good final round. If you’re going to carry over the totals from the first round to the second, carry it over to the third too. That way it really does allow the best player to win. Or just don’t have any rounds carry over so the participants have to give it their best attempt each and every time. If you do that, the fans are the big winners, as they should be for forking over that kind of money to watch a glorified batting practice for 3 hours.

The current system allows for nothing more than synthetic drama in the final round. Hamilton was the real winner last year, and Ryan Howard should have at least had the chance to win it this year. I know it can’t be both ways. It’s got to either be every round carries over or none do, and I’m ok with that. It would do the competition more justice than this monstrosity, which makes the BCS look like fair play by comparison.

Again, I’d like to know what you think. Should it be every round carries over, or should every round be a clean slate? What would be the best value for your money?

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