Ranking the likeliest sluggers to win Monday’s HR Derby (8 ET, ESPN)

Vlad Jr. won’t be back this year to defend his crown, but we will have another son of a former big leaguer in Bobby Witt Jr. We also have a two-time past champ in Pete Alonso, a burgeoning star in Gunnar Henderson and, of course, a hometown guy in Adolis García.

Each of the eight competitors in Monday night’s event at Globe Life Field (8 p.m. ET, ESPN) has a real chance to win this thing; otherwise, they wouldn’t be here. But because I am a professional prognosticator, or at least someone who types many words very fast about baseball hopefully for your amusement and enlightenment, I must make some predictions. So here are your 2024 Home Run Derby Power Rankings. Any of these guys could win. Here’s a semi-educated guess at who will.

(To be clear: I’ve listed the players in order of what I believe to be their likelihood of winning. With this year’s new rules, there are no seeds for the first round. Each player’s current 2024 home run total is included below.)

1. Pete Alonso, Mets (18 HR)
When Alonso is in his 60s and spending his days playing golf, lounging at the pool and hanging with his grandchildren, he will surely still have a place in the Home Run Derby. This is Alonso’s fifth Derby appearance, and he has won two of them, in 2019 and ’21. Thanks in part to the recent format changes, he also has hit more Derby home runs, 195, than anyone else in the contest’s history; he’s 32 ahead of Vlad Jr., who ranks second. (No one else in the contest this year is even close. Only García and José Ramírez have competed before, and neither made it out of the first round.) Only Ken Griffey Jr. has won this contest three times. If anyone’s going to match Junior, it’s Pete.

2. Gunnar Henderson, Orioles (27 HR)
Henderson won the AL Rookie of the Year Award last year and finished eighth in AL MVP voting, but he has been dramatically better this year, launching 27 homers, leading the Majors in runs and raising his OPS by more than 150 points. The three best hitters in MLB this year have been Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani and … Henderson. This All-Star Game, his first appearance, is a terrific opportunity for Henderson to introduce himself to a baseball audience on a massive, global stage. He has an ideal Home Run Derby swing: easy, smooth and repeatable. He’s going to win one of these one day. Might as well start now.

3. José Ramírez, Guardians (23 HR)
Throughout his career, Ramírez – forever one of the most underappreciated hitters in baseball – has said it has been a goal to be a part of a Home Run Derby, and in 2022, he finally got the chance. But, as we learned later, he had a serious right thumb injury, one he eventually had fixed with surgery at the end of the season. That issue forced the switch-hitter to bat right-handed in the Derby, and he struggled, failing to advance out of the first round. (He still hit 17. We should all struggle so badly.)

Unlike last time, Ramírez will be hitting left-handed this year, and while his career homer rates are pretty similar from each side of the plate, perhaps he’ll be more comfortable this time around. He’ll certainly be raring and ready to go, and it’s pretty tough not to root for him.

4. Adolis García, Rangers (17 HR)
You’ve got to have a hometown guy in the Home Run Derby, and there aren’t many more ideal choices than García. You may vividly remember the five homers he hit in the ALCS last year – many of them soaring, majestic blasts – earning him MVP honors against the Astros. We certainly know what it looks like when he really gets ahold of one in that stadium, that’s for sure. García fell short in the first round last year against Randy Arozarena, but he’ll be looking to go further this year, and with the hometown crowd behind him, I think he will. He could become the fourth hometown slugger to win the event and first since Bryce Harper for the Nationals in 2018.

5. Marcell Ozuna, Braves (24 HR)
Despite 260 homers over his 12-year career – including the 40 he hit last year and the NL-best 18 he hit during the truncated 2020 season – Ozuna has never been a part of the Home Run Derby before. While he does have the right swing mechanics for it, one does wonder if that might wear him down under the rigors of this contest. If he pulls off the upset, it’ll mark the first time any Brave has won the Derby: Ronald Acuña Jr. has been in it twice but never gotten out of the semifinals.

6. Bobby Witt Jr., Royals (15 HR)
Witt is one of those players who is so talented at everything that it almost seems limiting just to let him try to hit homers: It’s like when Mookie Betts was in the Derby, sort of a Michael Jordan in the three-point contest type of thing. That said, Witt certainly has plenty of power, and he’s the sort of electric talent that you can’t help but want to watch in an event like this. In many ways, he looks like the next transcendent, decades-long Royals superstar. Maybe he’ll become the first Royal to win this thing.

7. Teoscar Hernández, Dodgers (19 HR)
All right, so maybe he isn’t the first Dodger you would have picked for this competition; he certain doesn’t have the Q rating of those alongside him in that lineup. But he is second on the team in homers – behind Shohei, of course – and he’s been a terrific free-agent addition. Considering how many other guys in the Dodgers lineup have struggled or gotten hurt, he’s been a life saver for them. He’s well on his way to setting a career high in homers, and his teammates know what he can do: “He can punish a baseball,” said former Derby participant and Dodgers teammate Freddie Freeman. “I’ll put all my chips on him.”

8. Alec Bohm, Phillies (11 HR)
Bohm is hardly the prototypical Home Run Derby participant. He has only 11 homers this year, and he has never hit more than 20. But he is big (6-foot-5, 218 pounds) and strong, and he has certainly shown extra-base ability: He leads the NL in doubles and is second in RBIs. Is he the first Phillie you would think of in this contest? Or the second? Or the third? Maybe not. But he’s starting in the All-Star Game, and he’s clearly eager to be a part of this. Bohm is definitely the least likely to win, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be fun to see him try.