MLB All-Star Week: Home Run Derby

I think Major League Baseball did a great job this year of showcasing the New York teams for this year's MLB All-Star game at Citi Field. Having David Wright and Robinson Cano as captains of the Home Run Derby has definitely made it slightly more interesting.

There's a couple of things I would change about the HR Derby but the main thing is that there should be more players involved. I like that they put captains on both teams with the captains being members of the host team and closest rival like they did this year with Wright and Cano. I think letting the captains pick four other players for their squads would be great and then the MLB should give the fans the opportunity to vote for the sixth spot on both teams.

If you look at both teams it appears to be a little completely one-sided. I'm not expecting anybody from the National League to actually win this thing as all of the best HR hitters are on the American League's team. I really don't know if both captains made the best picks for their teams either with Wright really dropping the ball.

National League:

David Wright 
Season: 13 HR, Career: 217 HR

Bryce Harper
Season: 13 HR, Career: 35 HR

Michael Cuddyer
Season: 16 HR, Career: 173 HR

Pedro Alvarez
Season: 24 HR, Career: 74 HR

Carlos Gonzalez is currently leading the National League in home runs with 25 but had to be replaced by Alvarez due to injury. Alvarez should have been on this team from the get go as he is currently in second place in the NL with 24 home runs. So far with Wright (the captain) and Alvarez the team is only half right.

The other two guys on the NL's team should not be swinging away tonight. Harper only has 13 home runs this year and has only hit 35 total in his career. I don't know if he's right for this kind of competition as he is a similar hitter to Wright. Cuddyer happens to play in home run happy Colorado where everyone seems to become a home run hitter and if he had to play at Citi Field all season long he would probably be closer to 10 home runs right now.

When I look at who should replace these two guys, I would have been okay with any two from these next four: Domonic Brown (23 HR), Paul Goldschmidt (21 HR), Jay Bruce (19 HR) and Carlos Beltran (19 HR). I would have especially liked to have seen Wright pick his former teammate Beltran to have the chance to put on a show once again at the ballpark he once called home.

I wouldn't be shocked if all of these players didn't make it to the round 2 of tonight's Derby. Wright and Harper aren't home run hitters (I'm a Mets fan and I don't have much hope for Wright.), Cuddyer doesn't have friendly Coors Field helping him and Pedro Alvarez will likely fall flat under the bright lights. Don't expect a winner to come from here or any of them to really challenge for this year's title.

^

I hope they don't plan on raising this guy after every single home run. The apple isn't used to home runs.

American League:

Robinson Cano
Season: 21 HR, Career: 198 HR

Prince Fielder
Season: 16 HR, Career: 276 HR

Chris Davis
Season: 37 HR, Career: 114 HR

Yoenis Cespedes
Season: 15 HR, Career: 38 HR

Robby Cano could have completely stacked his team for this year's competition, but for some reason he added underachieving Yoenis Cespedes to the AL roster (Trust me he's underachieving. He's on my fantasy team and I've been wanting to drop him for two months.)

Cano was right in adding Chris Davis who might be the first player to hit more than 61 home runs and not take steroids (Can someone just "randomly" drug test him please? We need to make sure he's clean before another guy jacked up on steroids beats out Roger Maris again.).

The other no-brainer was Prince Fielder who's the defending champion. Fielder also won this competition in 2009. If Fielder wins tonight he will join Ken Griffey Jr. as the only players to ever win three MLB Home Run Derbys.

So with three guys on the team all you have to do is replace Cespedes who only has 15 home runs this season. Coming into the break there are 10 guys in the AL who have over 20 home runs and somehow he chose Cespedes over them.

The obvious pick would be to add Miguel Cabrera who has 30 home runs so that we can watch him in potential showdowns with Davis and teammate, Prince Fielder. Cabrera and Davis are currently competing against one another for the Triple Crown and if Davis slows down in the second half we could possibly see a repeat Triple Crown winner.

Because I'm a Mets fan I'll be picking David Wright tonight. You shouldn't be allowed to root against a guy from the team that you root for 162 games a season. The easy picks are to go with Davis or Fielder, but I wouldn't be surprised if Cano came out and won his second HR Derby. He was terrible last year when he put up an egg so expect him to actually show up tonight. Again if you have to choose anyone just stay away from the guys suiting up for the National League.