ESPN will present the 2024 T-Mobile Home Run Derby on Monday, July 15 featuring Sunday Night Baseball broadcasters Karl Ravech and Eduardo Pérez on the call. Todd Frazier, former MLB third baseman and champion of the 2015 Home Run Derby, will also be joining the broadcast for the first time and making his analyst debut.
Frazier won the event as a member of the Cincinnati Reds from the team’s home stadium, Great American Ball Park, defeating Joc Pederson in the final round by a score of 15-14. One year earlier, he had been in the final round of the event but lost to defending champion Yoenis Céspedes. Frazier participated in the Home Run Derby three times in his career, making his final appearance in 2016 and finishing second to Giancarlo Stanton.
As Frazier joins the broadcast this year, he brings experience both within the annual event and on the air. For the Little League World Series, in which he was a champion in 1998, he has called games for ESPN. The network has been covering the event since 1987, chronicling the display of talent on the field and personalities therein. Being able to announce the Home Run Derby is a meaningful occasion for Frazier, who explained that while he dreamed of playing in the major leagues, he also loves commentary and pretending to be a broadcaster.
“For me, to be with this group, with Karl and Eduardo, these guys are at the top of their game,” Frazier said. “They’re the best of the best. In baseball terms, they put the ball on the tee for me pretty much, and I just have to hit the home run.”
Outside of ESPN, Frazier serves as a co-host on the Foul Territory podcast from Make Plays Media, which recently started being televised on Bally Sports-branded regional sports networks owned by Diamond Sports Group. Frazier has also contributed to coverage of New York Yankees baseball on the YES Network and radio broadcasts for the Cincinnati Reds. Making his Little League World Series broadcasting debut in 2022, he was included on the commentary roster along with Ravech and Pérez.
“These guys have taught me a lot, and now the culmination of me announcing the Home Run Derby, I pinch myself every day,” Frazier said. “It’s a huge opportunity for me, and I can’t wait to get in the box with these guys and scream and yell and laugh and see how far these guys hit the ball.”
The Home Run Derby is adopting a new format for this year’s competition, beginning with the top four hitters in the first round advancing rather than head-to-head matchups. Batters will have 40 pitches or three minutes to hit as many home runs as possible, whichever metric concludes first. The second round of the event will be seeded based on the number of first-round home runs, and tiebreakers will come down to who had the longest home run hit in the round.
Phil Orlins, ESPN vice president of production, delineated that the network has been focused on the new rules and “reimagining some of the coverage around those new rules.” Additionally, ESPN will introduce a new graphic with 40 slots to be filled in based on the result of each pitch. The network will also utilize 4D replay, placing cameras outside of the batter’s dirt circle 15 feet away from the hitter. Those cameras will need to be set up in 30 minutes following the conclusion of batting practice.
ESPN2 will present a Statcast edition of the T-Mobile Home Run Derby featuring Kevin Brown, Jessica Mendoza and Mike Petriello. The broadcast will provide in-depth information and data about the home runs within the competition. Determining the commentary team for that event is partially based on the success the network has had with other alternate broadcasts, including Sunday Night Baseball with KayRod and Monday Night Football with Peyton and Eli.
“The play with this is to go really aggressive, differentiated, and talk about stuff in a different way than we ever would with real deep layers of data,” Orlins said. “We skipped most of the interviews except for the winning interviews. We’re just diving all the way in. Every swing, we’re going to have strike zones, and you can see where every pitch is thrown. Hot zones, where the hitter likes it, where the pitcher is trying to throw it, ball marks for it, exit velocity and launch angle as it leaves the bat, distance it lands. All those pieces are in there.”
