Biggest Hit of the 2015 Derby Was The New Format

A fitting end to the 2015 edition of the a Major League Baseball home run derby; Todd Frazier of the hometown Reds gets the walk off win.

Not only that, but from my perspective, the big winner of the night was the new format installed by Major League Baseball this year.

I preface this all by paraphrasing a conversation I had with my best friend tonight.

Basically, he says, "who would have ever thought a buzzer would become part of the game. "

To which I said, "I don't [like it]".

In my explanation, I stated my case that baseball was never about time constraints, and the traditionalists point of view, bla bla bla, a bunch of hogwash that basically I realized I was contradicting myself in years of complaints about the derby that it was too long, too many non swings, too many commercial breaks,  etc etc etc.

Boiling down to me realizing, this time formula baseball came up with was almost short of brilliant.

Yes you could give guys a "pitch limit" but then you put too much pressure on the guy throwing and all of a sudden the whole night becomes about him.

You could limit "takes" by the hitter but then guys are forcing swings and that's just no fun.

What the league did with a very generous amount of time, was basically to each player say, "ok, you get as many swings as you want, in this time frame."

"If you want to sit and be picky about your pitches, fine, but know, your opponent (which was another huge hit to the night) might just get more volume of swings than you."

It really left EVERYTHING up to the hitter to make the most of every swing or pitch.

I also loved the seeding matchups of the night.

While I don't think it really added that much to the competition, it was just fun to watch it all unfold and made it all more organized.

I attended the derby two years ago in New York at Citi Field, and I have to be honest, I was truly losing interest in the whole All Star week in general, and the Home Run derby then gave me no hope to enjoy it ever again.

The stadium atmosphere was awful. The fans, the stadium announcers and the derby was terrible.

I was leaning on this year to change my mind.

It did.

I love the new format and as I said on social media, the derby ending at 9:30 pm central time is something I can definitely get behind.

Ask a lot of my good friends, I'm very much a traditionalist when it comes to baseball.

And while it took me a little bit to get behind, I loved the new format of the derby.

Hats off to Rob Manfred and the MLB guess for this huge success.