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- Early Boxing Day sales on Amazon that can't be ignored
- Share this Story: Prince Fielder overpowers Jose Bautista in Home Run Derby
- Jose Bautista loses Home Run Derby, philosophically quotes ‘Talladega Nights’
- Bautista shifts focus to Home Run Derby
- Ex-Chelsea owner Abramovich happily settled in Turkey; planning to buy club
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The 2014 Major League Baseball Home Run Derby was a home run hitting contest in Major League Baseball between five batters each from the American League and National League. The derby was held on July 14, 2014, at the site of the 2014 MLB All-Star Game, Target Field in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Yoenis Céspedes was the winner, repeating his winning performance in 2013 to join Ken Griffey Jr. and Pete Alonso as the only players to win consecutive Home Run Derbies.
"I remember watching Frank Thomas, Ken Griffey Jr., all the big hitters on TV. Every kid that likes baseball likes the Home Run Derby." Current St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols and Barry Bonds are the two NL players to achieve the feat. "I knew Bautista should've been in it last year," Ortiz told Toronto reporters during the Jays' visit to Beantown last week. "I was kind of a little upset about it, because I wanted to see Bautista hitting. I wanted everybody to know what he's all about." Bautista was excluded from last year's event despite 24 first-half homers — eight more than his previous season high — but that wasn't going to happen again with another 31 long balls in 84 games in 2011.
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On August 21, 2008, the Pirates traded Bautista to the Blue Jays for a player to be named later, who eventually was Robinzon Díaz. Bautista batted .214 with three home runs and 10 RBI in 21 games for Toronto after the trade. Bautista was to be the Pirates' starting third baseman and backup outfielder in 2008. From June 14 to 24, he hit five home runs in a span of nine games against interleague opponents Baltimore, Chicago White Sox, Toronto Blue Jays, and the New York Yankees.
But it was a September surge which caught the eye of some within the organization, as he exploded to hit 10 home runs in 30 games for the Blue Jays. We should celebrate these players for their momentous milestones, but lost in the shuffle along the way are some other home run feats which maybe don’t get the respect they deserve. Tulowitzki might even select teammate Justin Morneau, especially since the first baseman came up in the Twins' organization and it would be a homecoming. Although the honor was just recently bestowed on Tulowitzki, he's already mulling over his options. Giancarlo Stanton of Miami is high on his list, especially since he leads the league in homers with 20.
Share this Story: Prince Fielder overpowers Jose Bautista in Home Run Derby
Fans flock to see the league’s best power hitters outslug each other in a display of incredible skill and immense power. Despite the widespread celebration of the event, some critics bring up the so-called “Curse of the Home Run Derby” every year. Some argue the Derby is detrimental to participants, causing fatigue and injury that negatively impacts the player’s second-half production. My goal is to determine if there is any truth to this myth or if we can simply enjoy watching our favourite players participate without worry.
But if we find out that Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion bump knuckles and tell each other "Shake and Bake," after a home run, the Blue Jays really ought to change the movie in the clubhouse. In describing the Bautista-Ricky Bobby moment to me, Bastian said Bautista was not kidding around, and that he actually took offense when another reporter asked him if he were really all that upset about losing in the finals. Bautista gave him a look as if to say, "Who wouldn't be?" Bautista might have been quoting a light and breezy comedy, but that whole "If you're not first, you're last" deal resonates with most pro athletes.
Jose Bautista loses Home Run Derby, philosophically quotes ‘Talladega Nights’
He was the American League winner of the Hank Aaron Award for the second consecutive season, becoming just the third player in the award's history, after Rodriguez and Barry Bonds, to win the award in back-to-back years. Bautista was named co-winner of the American League Player of the Week award for the period ending August 1. On August 26, Bautista hit his 100th career home run against the Detroit Tigers. Bautista was again named player of the week for the week ending August 29; in seven games that week, Bautista led the American League with a .500 batting average (10-for-20) and hit four home runs.
Bautista smashed the previous Blue Jays franchise record of George Bell’s 47 home run campaign set in 1987. In a season that saw Albert Pujols hit his 700th career home run and has Aaron Judge on the doorstep of breaking history, 2022 has been a fun one for home-run fanatics. "You take a look during , sometimes I'll go out there and try to hit a home run on every single pitch," Tulowitzki said. "To be the captain, I don't know if that's something I'm looking forward to because of how tough the decisions are going to be," Tulowitzki said Monday before the Rockies played the St. Louis Cardinals. "You can't put everybody that wants to participate on your team. So with that, you open yourself up. Rockies shortstop Troy Tulowitzki and Blue Jays outfielder Jose Bautista have been named captains of this year's National League and American League Home Run Derby squads, respectively.
Bautista finished the 2010 season with an MLB-leading 54 home runs, the highest total since Alex Rodriguez hit 54 in 2007. Bautista won the AL Hank Aaron Award and a Silver Slugger Award, awards for his offensive performance, and finished fourth in the AL Most Valuable Player Award voting, behind Hamilton, Miguel Cabrera and Robinson Canó. The Toronto chapter of the BBWAA named Bautista the Blue Jays' Most Valuable Player, the Blue Jays' Most Improved Player, and presented him the John Cerutti Award for displaying "goodwill, cooperation and character".
From this, I acquired data from the first and second half of the season for each of these players. I scraped metrics such as home runs , at-bats , on-base plus slugging and slugging percentage using the baseball-scraper Python package. I used statistics from the season that each player participated in the Derby and chose July 15th as the average date of the divide between the first and second half.
Bautista didn’t take part in the Home Run Derby event, he was about to put in his own derby in the second half of the season. While most sluggers slow their home run pace in the final 81 games, Bautista picked up his pace by hitting 30 homers in the second half. On June 22, 2018, Bautista hit his first home run as a member of the Mets against the Dodgers, making it his third of the season . On July 6, Bautista hit a walk off grand slam against the Rays, the first walk off home run of his career. He batted .204 with nine home runs, 37 RBI and a .351 OBP in 83 games with the Mets.
His .203 batting average was the lowest of all qualified major league batters. The Blue Jays declined Bautista's option for 2018 on November 4, 2017 marking the end of his tenure as a Blue Jay. After working out with various Major League Baseball clubs, he turned down offers of $5,000 from the New York Yankees and $42,000 from the Arizona Diamondbacks.
He took over for reigning National League batting champion Freddy Sanchez, who moved to second base. For the month of July, Bautista batted .347, with 11 home runs, 29 RBI, and an AL-leading .765 slugging percentage, sharing American League Player of the Month honors with Twins outfielder Delmon Young. Bautista was also named Blue Jays' Player of the Month, which is selected through voting by the Toronto chapter of the Baseball Writers' Association of America. With his 12 home runs in May and 11 in July, Bautista became only the third Blue Jay player in franchise history to have two months with at least 10 home runs. As announced by Major League Baseball, there were changes to the format of the Home Run Derby in 2014.
It took a whole year, but the secret cabal that rules the Home Run Derby has decided, in its infinite and unquestioned wisdom, to give Major League Baseball's top home-run hitter a shot. After the Derby, his home run percentage dropped by about 4.5%, along with a decrease of 0.28 in OPS. Secondly, the drop in OPS doesn’t reveal anything without comparing it to the rest of the league. Perhaps the entire MLB sees a decrease in offensive production in the second half of the year, simply due to the fatigue from the long length of the season. For this reason, I decided to also collect the first and second half data for the entire league since 2010.
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Those selected for the All-Star Game are done so because they have an incredible, above-average start to the season. The expectation that these players will maintain this level of play throughout the entirety of the lengthy MLB season is simply unrealistic. Eventually, the law of averages comes into play, and players return to their normal level of play. Not that there's anything wrong with Will Ferrell movies , it's just you don't necessarily expect ballplayers born in the Dominican Republic to quote them. However, when you consider what the quote means and how competitive these major leaguers are, it makes sense.
In comparison to the drops experienced among Home Run Derby participants, these differences are minimal. The spring after his 54 home run campaign, Bautista signed a five-year $65 million contract, and the rest is history. In most respects, his 2011 season with the Blue Jays was actually better than his 54 home run season in 2010.
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