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PHILADELPHIA — The young upstart beat the veteran hometown hero in MLB’s Home Run Derby.
Cardinals outfielder Jordan Walker upset Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber in the league’s home run contest before a raucous crowd at Citizens Bank Park, prevailing by a 12-11 score in the final. Walker completed a closing rally with six straight home runs on his final six swings to overtake Schwarber.
The 24-year-old Walker, a fourth-year player in the midst of a breakout season for the resurgent Cardinals, will gain a $1 million prize for winning the Home Run Derby—the largest part of the league’s $2.5 million prize pool for the event. Those winnings for Walker more than eclipse his entire 2026 salary of $799,400.
He is also the first Cardinal to win the Home Run Derby, despite a storied franchise history that includes former stars such as Mark McGwire and Albert Pujols.
Schwarber will get the $500,000 runner-up prize.
Bryce Harper, the other Home Run Derby competitor from the All-Star Game host club Phillies, did not advance beyond the first round.
Harper and five other Home Run Derby competitors—the Rays’ Junior Caminero, the Red Sox’ Willson Contreras, Royals’ Jac Caglianone, White Sox’ Munetaka Murakami, and Yankees’ Ben Rice—earned $150,000 each. Caminero also had the longest home run of the night, at 491 feet, to garner an additional $100,000.
Despite a move to an untimed competition format for the first time since 2014, this year’s Home Run Derby still moved with crispness and was complete before 10:40 p.m. ET. Instead of going by batter outs, as had been the case before the use of a timer, this year’s structure went by the number of swings.
Cheering on Schwarber’s run to the finals, the Philadelphia fans, meanwhile, are giving an even more definitively local feel to an All-Star Game missing MLB’s two biggest stars and many top pitchers.
The Home Run Derby was shown exclusively on Netflix for the first time, with the streaming giant picking up the rights previously held by ESPN.
Similar to the migration of sports content to streaming that has sparked governmental outcry elsewhere, Netflix carrying the derby prompted a predictable run of complaints from fans.
“I miss when the hardest part of watching sports was finding the remote,” read one typical fan complaint on social media. “Now I need a flowchart, six streaming services, QR codes, two-factor authentication, and blood samples just to watch guys hit the long balls us chicks dig so much.”
MLB’s strategy with placing the Home Run Derby on Netflix, though, was getting in front of a younger group of fans, and a larger collection of people as well. Netflix has a domestic reach of about 90 million homes, and has more than 325 million subscribers globally, and both measures are still growing. ESPN’s linear channel, by comparison, is in roughly 60 million U.S. households—down by 40% from a peak seen 15 years ago.
That strategy largely paid off for Netflix earlier this year for a season-opening MLB broadcast, despite some production issues for that Yankees-Giants contest.
The Home Run Derby production itself alternated between two different crews of talent. That collection of personalities was highlighted in part by MLB legends Barry Bonds and Pujols, MLB’s Nos. 1 and 4 all-time home run hitters.
The post Jordan Walker Edges Out Kyle Schwarber in New-Format Home Run Derby appeared first on Front Office Sports.
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Cardinals outfielder Jordan Walker upset Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber in the league’s home run contest before a raucous crowd at Citizens Bank Park, prevailing by a 12-11 score in the final. Walker completed a closing rally with six straight home runs on his final six swings to overtake Schwarber.
The 24-year-old Walker, a fourth-year player in the midst of a breakout season for the resurgent Cardinals, will gain a $1 million prize for winning the Home Run Derby—the largest part of the league’s $2.5 million prize pool for the event. Those winnings for Walker more than eclipse his entire 2026 salary of $799,400.
He is also the first Cardinal to win the Home Run Derby, despite a storied franchise history that includes former stars such as Mark McGwire and Albert Pujols.
Schwarber will get the $500,000 runner-up prize.
Bryce Harper, the other Home Run Derby competitor from the All-Star Game host club Phillies, did not advance beyond the first round.
Harper and five other Home Run Derby competitors—the Rays’ Junior Caminero, the Red Sox’ Willson Contreras, Royals’ Jac Caglianone, White Sox’ Munetaka Murakami, and Yankees’ Ben Rice—earned $150,000 each. Caminero also had the longest home run of the night, at 491 feet, to garner an additional $100,000.
Despite a move to an untimed competition format for the first time since 2014, this year’s Home Run Derby still moved with crispness and was complete before 10:40 p.m. ET. Instead of going by batter outs, as had been the case before the use of a timer, this year’s structure went by the number of swings.
Cheering on Schwarber’s run to the finals, the Philadelphia fans, meanwhile, are giving an even more definitively local feel to an All-Star Game missing MLB’s two biggest stars and many top pitchers.
New-Look Broadcast
The Home Run Derby was shown exclusively on Netflix for the first time, with the streaming giant picking up the rights previously held by ESPN.
Similar to the migration of sports content to streaming that has sparked governmental outcry elsewhere, Netflix carrying the derby prompted a predictable run of complaints from fans.
“I miss when the hardest part of watching sports was finding the remote,” read one typical fan complaint on social media. “Now I need a flowchart, six streaming services, QR codes, two-factor authentication, and blood samples just to watch guys hit the long balls us chicks dig so much.”
MLB’s strategy with placing the Home Run Derby on Netflix, though, was getting in front of a younger group of fans, and a larger collection of people as well. Netflix has a domestic reach of about 90 million homes, and has more than 325 million subscribers globally, and both measures are still growing. ESPN’s linear channel, by comparison, is in roughly 60 million U.S. households—down by 40% from a peak seen 15 years ago.
That strategy largely paid off for Netflix earlier this year for a season-opening MLB broadcast, despite some production issues for that Yankees-Giants contest.
The Home Run Derby production itself alternated between two different crews of talent. That collection of personalities was highlighted in part by MLB legends Barry Bonds and Pujols, MLB’s Nos. 1 and 4 all-time home run hitters.
The post Jordan Walker Edges Out Kyle Schwarber in New-Format Home Run Derby appeared first on Front Office Sports.
Continue reading...
