Grandy and Tex.....Mantle and Maris???

On July 5th Curtis Granderson hit 2 HR's to give him 25 on the season. That is the name number Mark Teixeira has for the yanks this year. They are the first teammates since Mantle and Maris to hit 25 HR's each before the All-Star break. They did it in the magical season of 1961. At that time Maris had 33 HR's and Mantle had 29 HR's.

Aramis The Great

After a slow start Aramis Ramirez has been one of the hottest sluggers in baseball. He has 10 HR's in his last 15 games. He now has 15 total on the season and is only 10 away from last years total. During this stretch he also raised his avg to .300 and put himself on pace for 100 RBI's.

On The Plus Side

Ian Kinsler homered not once but twice last night. That gives him 11 for the season and passes his 2010 HR total of 9 HR's. The only other derby players that have passed their 2010 HR totals at this point are Carlos Beltran, Mitch Moreland, Carlos Santana and Brett Wallace.

I'm not a machine, I am Albert!

Looks like Pujols wasn't lying on the ESPN promo. Today he proved he was human by going on the DL. He will miss 4-6 weeks with a wrist injury. That will make the monthly derby race interesting. The current top 2 teams for the month have Pujols. That leaves the door wide open!

The Bronx Bombers

The Yankees are a team built to hit HR's. In yesterdays game they added 3 more long balls to their season total. Granderson, Teixeira and Arod were all contributors. All 3 players are in the top 10 for HR's in the AL. Granderson is tied for the MLB lead with Jose Bautista. They both have 20.

Its Good To Be Prince

Brewer 1B Prince Fielder is a big man who hits the ball a long way. It took this locomotive a while to get started but now that he has he's not slowing down. He has 17 HR's total, and had a recent stretch where he hit 6 HR's in 7 games. He's ahead of last years pace and his name appears quite a bit in the Derby Top 20. Looks like veggies work too!

1 Morse Time

National OF Michael Morse is on fire. He started the year battling for a spot in the lineup. Over the first month of the season he was batting .200 with 1 HR. As of today he is batting .306 with 10 HR's. He has 3 HR's in his last 6 games. This guys a beast.

Kemperature Rising

Dodgers OF Matt Kemp hit his 19th of the season last night. He is well ahead of last years pace of 28 HR's which was his previous career best. Kemp was overlooked by everyone in the derby. Being a Dodger fan I would love to have that pick back.

Nelson Meet Josh, Josh Meet Nelson

Texas OF Josh Hamilton went yard again yesterday. That gives him 2 HR's since returning from the DL. Thats good news for Nelson Cruz owners. In each game that Hamilton has homered Cruz has also gone deep. Both owners can only hope that trend continues.

The Bruce Is Loose

Reds OF Jay Bruce just finished an amazing month of baseball. In May he hit .342 and had a .739 slugging %. He had 12 HR's and 33 RBI's in 28 games. In his final 14 games of the month he went on a tear with 9 HR's and 22 RBI's. He is the early favorite for pick of the year!

Over The Hill

On May 29th Toronto 2B Aaron Hill finally recorded his first HR. That leaves Joe Mauer as the only player thats not out for the year who has not recorded a HR.

Rip Hamilton

In his first game back off the DL, Rangers OF Josh Hamilton ripped his first HR of the season. He's finally on the board leaving Joe Mauer and Aaron Hill as the only derby participants that have not homered and are not out for the year.......or retired!

Fat Albert

Cards 1B Albert Pujols finally connected with a long ball. It was his first HR in 106 AB's which spanned over a 1 month period. It was the longest stretch of his career without a HR. He now has 8 HR's on the year. Derby owners might be happy to hear how many HR's he had at this point in the season last year. Thats right he had only 8 HR's last year too. He went on to finish with 42!

The Giambino

It was throw back night in Colorado last night. Rockies 1B Jason Giambi hit 3 HR's which made people look at the calendar to make sure it wasn't 1998 when he first burst on to the scene in Oakland. Giambi became the 2nd oldest player in MLB history to hit 3 HR's in 1 game, only sitting behind Stan "The Man" Musial. Giambi also goes in the books as 1 of only 4 players that have hit 3 HR's in a game after the age of 40. He joins the Hall of Fame list of Babe Ruth, Stan Musial and Reggie Jackson. Thats some good company to keep.

Harmon Killebrew

The baseball world lost Hall of Fame slugger Harmon Killebrew on Tuesday May 17th to esophageal cancer. He was 74 years old. Some interesting Killebrew facts:

-11th on baseball’s all-time home run list

- His eight seasons with 40 or more homers is tied for second in league history to Babe Ruth

- his uppercut swing formed the silhouette that inspired Major League Baseball’s official logo

- 11-time All-Star

- American League’s Most Valuable Player in 1969 after hitting 49 home runs with 140 RBIs and 145 walks, all Minnesota Twins records that stand to this day

Joey Bats

Toronto OF Jose Bautista homered 3 times on Sunday to raise his league leading total to 16. That gives him 13 HR's in the last 20 games which is an incredible pace. Most thought he was a one year wonder but he's proving his doubters wrong. Not only is he hitting the long ball but he's also batting .370. The media is starting to whisper triple crown threat. Either way watching this guy hit is flat out fun. And if he comes close to breaking his 54 HR total from 2010, ESPN will be all over it.

4 Bagger

Red Sox 1B Adrian Gonzalez has homered in 4 straight games. That gives him 5 HR's in 4 games.

Tough Break

LAA 1B/OF Kendrys Morales has once again shut it down for the season. The ankle that he broke last year, while celebrating a walk off HR, has not fully healed and will require more surgery. This is a significant blow to derby owners, fantasy owners and of course the Angels. The 11 derby owners that drafted him knew it would be a high risk/high reward situation. Looks like risk won.

The Trifecta

On Thursday May12th Carlos Beltran went yard 3 times. He was able to do it against 3 different pitchers and from both sides of the plate. He becomes the first derby player to pass his HR total from last year. The 3 teams that have him have already gotten their monies worth. Of course he does this in a contract year which only makes Met fans hate him even more. And they thought it couldn't get any worse after watching Beltran look at a called strike 3 in game 7 of the NLCS.

A Grand Slam....Or Is It?

On Wednesday May 11th, Mitch Moreland his a grand slam in the 3rd inning which gave him 6 HR's for the year. Unfortunately for Mitch and his owners heavy rains led to the game being postponed before becoming official, thus wiping out all the stats. The only people happy about that are the owners who don't have him and Oakland A's starter Gio Gonzalez. Gio had just finished the worst inning of his career getting shelled for 7 runs.

Wicked Sweet

Boston 1B Adrian Gonzalez has caught fire. In his last 9 games he has 6 HR's. After a slow start he has his derby owners jumping up in the standings. We can officially remove the early bust label.

#2 SS Derek Jeter, #2

Derek Jeter hit his 1st and 2nd HR's of the season in Sundays game against the Rangers. It was his first HR in 259 AB's, a streak that dated back to August 24th. That streak was the 2nd longest of Jeters career. It was also the 10th multi-homer game of his career. Yankee fans are hoping that this is a sign that Jeter may have a little something left in the tank.

LONG awaited HR

On Saturday 5/7 TB 3B Evan Longoria hit his first HR of the season. Looks like he is healthy and ready to get his derby owners to the top of the leaderboard.

Florida/Cincinatti

On Sunday May 1st the Marlins and Reds hit 7 HR's combined. That seems like a lot but is not even close to the MLB record. 2 times Detroit and Chicago did there best beer league softball impression by going yard 12 times combined. You were lucky to be sitting in the bleachers on 5/28/95 or 7/2/02.

Welcome To The Party

On Sunday May 1st Hanley Ramirez and Justin Morneau finally went deep. Owners can only hope that gets them going for the rest of the season.

Brains and Brawn

The Brewers Ryan Braun went deep for a league leading 10th time yesterday. That puts him on pace for close to 65 HR's and has his derby owners looking real smart.

Catching Fire

Catcher is not usually looked at as a position of offensive production. But this year the NYY have not 1 but 2 players hitting the long ball that are Catcher eligible. Russell Martin and Jorge Posada are tied for the most HR's amongst MLB Catchers. They each have 6 and have helped the NYY lead MLB with a total 36 team HR's. This pace would shatter the All-time MLB record for a team which is 264 by the Seattle Mariners in 1997.

J-Walking

On Thursday April 14th, Johnny Damon became the first player in MLB history to hit a walk-off HR for 5 different teams. Those teams are the Royals, Red Sox, Yankees, Tigers and now Rays. He has 6 career walk-offs. There are 5 players tied for the all-time lead with 12 walk-off HR's.

You Can't Hit HR's at Citi Field???

Met fans know that Citi Field has not been kind to players looking to put up power numbers. Just ask Jason Bay about his experience. But don't try telling that to Troy Tulowitzki. In the recent 4 games series at Citi Field, Tulo jacked out a deep ball in each of those games. He now leads the majors with 7 HR's. I can picture Mugatu(Will Ferrell) sitting with his dog in the Mets dugout saying "It's that damn Tulowitzki. He's so hot right now!"

Manny Being Manny

After testing positive for PED's for the 3rd time in his career, Manny Ramirez has decided to retire from baseball. Manny steps away ranked 14th All-time with 555 career HR's. This year he ranked 3rd among active players for career HR's behind Arod and Jim Thome. He is the All-time leader with 29 post-season HR's. Manny was filthy with the bases loaded recording 22 career Grand Slams, 2nd only to Lou Gehrig. Needless to say Manny is one of the best pure hitters of our lifetime. Unfortunately for him he may never see the Hall of Fame because of the steroid controversy that surrounds him. In the words of Will Ferrell (AKA Chaz) in Wedding Crashers, "WHAT AN IDIOT!"

Nelson Cruz

Nelson Cruz became the 3rd player in MLB history to start the season with HR's in his teams first 4 games. The other 2 players are Hall of Famer Willie Mays(1971) and admitted juicer Mark McGwire (1998). 1998 was also the year that McGwire broke Roger Maris' HR record finishing with 70 dingers. Which we all know was then broken by Mr Balco himself Barry Bonds. Who is now getting his testicles measured by our federal government to see if he has experienced "shrinkage".

Jason Heyward

Atlanta Braves Star, Jason Heyward, became the 2nd player in MLB history to start his career with consecutive Opening Day HR's in his first AB. He shares that record with ex-Met Kaz Matsui.

The Grandy Man Can! (I hate John Sterling)

NYY OF Curtis Granderson homered for the 3rd consecutive opening day.

The Texas Connection

On Sunday April 3rd, Texas OF Nelson Cruz and 2B Ian Kinsler become the first teammates to hit HR's in their teams opening 3 games. The power numbers from Cruz were expected, but the power surge from Kinsler has his owners looking real good

Welcome!

Welcome to the 2011 HR Derby. Thanks to all the participants. Check out team rosters. Let me know if there are any discrepancies. Rosters are officially closed. If you want to see how many times players on your team were selected click on the fun facts page. Standings are guaranteed to be posted every Sunday, but I will keep them updated as often as possible. Good luck to everyone and PLAY BALL!

Page Redesign

Hey everyone,

Hope that you're all crunching numbers trying to figure out how to get under that 167 number.
Remember that all teams must be submitted by FRIDAY MARCH 25 at 9PM.  That's only 15 days away. Don't miss out.

In the meantime, I hope that you enjoy the page redesign.  The official rules and a team standings page have been created as links off the top menu for easy access.

If anyone has suggestions to make the page better, let us know in the comments.