The Football Fan Spot

There is always a lot of talk around this time about a potential Homerun Derby curse where a player who wins the Homerun Derby messes up his swing for the second half. The talk mostly comes from fans, but also recently it has been coming from the players, players like Albert Pujols who don’t want to compete. There have certainly been several prominent cases where a player has had a significantly worse 2nd half after winning or doing extremely well in the Derby (Josh Hamilton, Bobby Abreu), but, overall, is there a trend, or are there just a few cases we all remember? Let’s look at everyone who has won the Derby, as well as those players who did well in the Derby but did not win, since 2000. We’ll call 20 homeruns good.

2000

Sammy Sosa- 1st place 26

Pre all-star: .305 batting average 23 homeruns/338 at bats (1/14.7)

Post all-star: .338 batting average 27 homeruns/266 at bats (1/9.9)

Verdict: Significantly better 2nd half

Comments: None

2001

Luis Gonzalez- 1st place 16

Pre-all star: .355 batting average 35 homeruns/330 at bats (1/9.4)

Post-all star: .290 batting average 22 homeruns/279 at bats (1/12.7)

Verdict: Significantly worse 2nd half

Comments: None

Jason Giambi- 3rd place 20 (14 first round)

Pre-all star: .322 batting average 19 homeruns/283 at bats (1/14.9)

Post-all star: .367 batting average 19 homeruns/237 at bats (1/12.5)

Verdict: Significantly better 2nd half

Comments: None

2002

Jason Giambi- 1st place 24

Pre-all star: .318 batting average 22 homeruns/314 at bats (1/14.3)

Post-all star: .309 batting average 19 homeruns/246 at bats (1/12.9)

Verdict: Slightly better 2nd half

Comments: BA dropped a slight bit, but I think the increase in power is a little bit better than the dip in batting average

2003

Garret Anderson- 1st place 22

Pre-all star: .316 batting average 22 homeruns/370 at bats (1/16.8 )

Post-all star: .313 batting average 7 homeruns/268 at bats (1/38.3)

Verdict: Significantly worse 2nd half

Comments: Not actually as bad as it looks. Anderson was never a big power hitter and some of the difference we see here can be attributed to Anderson hitting 12 homeruns in June of 2003. That being said, it is hard to ignore those mere 7 homeruns.

Albert Pujols- 2nd place 26 (14 2nd round)

Pre-all star: .368 batting average 27 homeruns/348 at bats (1/12.9)

Post-all star: .346 batting average 16 homeruns/243 at bats(1/15.2)

Verdict: Slightly worse 2nd half

Comments: A tough one here, but if you hit a homerun in every 15 at bats and have a batting average of .346, it’s hard to say the Derby significantly hurt you, even if your BA did drop 22 points and your homeruns slowed down by a rate of 2.3 at bats.

Jason Giambi- 3rd place 23 (12 1st round)

Pre-all star: .267 batting average 26 homeruns/318 at bats (1/12.2)

Post-all star: .226 batting average 15 homeruns/217 at bats (1/14.7)

Verdict: Significantly worse 2nd half

Comments: Another tough one, the power didn’t really drop, but that .227 BA is ugly. I gave Pujols a slightly so I’ll give Giambi a significantly worse in this borderline call to make it fair.

2004

Miguel Tejada- 1st place 27

Pre-all star: .311 batting average 15 homeruns/344 at bats (1/22.9)

Post-all star: .311 batting average 19 homeruns/309 at bats (1/16.3)

Verdict: Slightly better 2nd half

Comments: None

Lance Berkman- 2nd place 21 (10 2nd round)

Pre-all star: .299 batting average 16 homeruns/284 at bats (1/17.8 )

Post-all star: .335 batting average 14 homeruns/260 at bats (1/18.6)

Verdict: Slightly better 2nd half

Comments: Power dropped a bit, but the 36 point increase in batting average counters that.

2005

Bobby Abreu- 1st place 41

Pre-all star: .307 batting average 18 homeruns/323 at bats (1/17.9)

Post-all star: .260 batting average 6 homeruns/265 at bats (1/44.2)

Verdict: Significantly worse 2nd half

Comments: Simply put, he sucked. There’s a reason he’s the poster child for the “Derby Curse.”

Ivan Rodriguez- 2nd place 20 (8 2nd round)

Pre-all star: .292 batting average 6 homeruns/292 at bats (1/48.7)

Post-all star: .252 batting average 8 homeruns/208 at bats (1/26)

Verdict: Slightly worse 2nd half

Comments: Another borderline one, his average dropped pretty significantly, but the power did pick up. However, Pudge has never been a homerun hitter and even when the power picked up, it didn’t pick up to the one where he was hitting a homerun every 15-20 at bats.

David Ortiz- 3rd place 20 (17 1st round)

Pre-all star: .314 batting average 21 homeruns/328 at bats (1/15.6)

Post-all star: .282 batting average 26 homeruns/273 at bats (1/10.5)

Verdict: Slightly better 2nd half

Comments: Another borderline one, the BA dropped, but the power went up significantly and since this is ultimately a homerun derby, I’d say the derby helped his swing. Papi’s never been a big BA guy either.

2006

Ryan Howard- 1st place 23

Pre-all star: .278 batting average 28 homeruns/316 at bats (1/11.3)

Post-all star: .355 batting average 30 homeruns/265 at bats (1/8.8 )

Verdict: Significantly better 2nd half

Comments: The anti-Bobby Abreu. This guy destroyed the baseball in the 2nd half.

David Wright- 2nd place 22 (16 1st round)

Pre-all star: .316 batting average 20 homeruns/339 at bats (1/17.0)

Post-all star: .305 average 6 homeruns/243 at bats (1/40.5)

Verdict: Significantly worse 2nd half

Comments: None

2007

Vladimir Guerrero- 1st place 17

Pre-all star: .325 batting average 14 homeruns/311 at bats (1/22.2)

Post-all star: .323 batting average 13 homeruns/263 at bats (1/20.2)

Verdict: Slightly better 2nd half

Comments: The increase in power by a rate of 2 at bats makes up for the 2 point drop in BA, which isn’t really anything.

2008

Justin Morneau- 1st place 22

Pre-all star: .323 batting average 14 homeruns/365 at bats (1/26.1)

Post-all star: .267 batting average 9 homeruns/258 at bats (1/28.7)

Verdict: Significantly worse 2nd half

Comments: A tough one, but it is hard to ignore a drop in BA of 56 points, even if the power didn’t get too much worse.

Josh Hamilton 2nd place 35 (28 1st round)

Pre-all star: .310 batting average 21 homeruns/377 at bats (1/18.0)

Post-all star: .297 batting average 11 homeruns/247 at bats (1/22.5)

Verdict: Slightly worse 2nd half

Comments: This may be controversial since Hamilton is hyped as having a horrible 2nd half, but the numbers don’t lie, 13 point BA drop isn’t horrible and neither is the drop in power from one every 18 to one every 22.5. This is also a slightly makeup call to balance the borderline slightly/significantly with Justin Morneau.

2009

Prince Fielder 1st place 23

Pre-all star: .315 batting average 22 homeruns/308 at bats (1/14)

Post-all star: .283 batting average 24 homeruns/283 at bats (1/11.8 )

Verdict: Slightly better 2nd half

Comments: The batting average did drop, but Prince has never been a BA guy and the power in his 2nd half was pretty amazing. When a guy hits a homerun in every 11.8 at bats in the 2nd half, you can’t really say the derby hurt him.

Nelson Cruz 2nd place 21 (11 1st round)

Pre-all star: .263 batting average 22 homeruns/297 at bats (1/13.5)

Post-all star: .255 batting average 11 homeruns/165 at bats (1/15)

Verdict: Slightly worse 2nd half

Comments: Cruz actually saw a decrease in playing time in the 2nd half, but he didn’t produce too much differently when he did play.

2010

David Ortiz 1st place 32

Pre-all star: .263 batting average 18 homeruns/251 at bats (1/13.9)

Post all-star: .277 batting average 14 homeruns/267 at bats (1/19.1)

Verdict: Slightly worse 2nd half

Comments: This was a tough one because his batting average had a noticeable increase, but his power had a noticeable decrease. That said, Papi is supposed to hit for power so I'll say slightly worse.

Hanley Ramirez 2nd place 26 (12 2nd round)

Pre-all star: .301 batting average 13 homeruns/326 at bats (1/25.1)

Post-all star: .300 batting average 8 homeruns/217 at bats (1/27.1)

Verdict: Slightly worse 2nd half

Comments: none

Totals:

Significantly worse: 6

Slightly worse: 6

Slightly better: 6

Significantly better: 3

I think these numbers really suggest that there isn’t a ton going on in terms of a Derby Curse. Yes, more players had worse stats than better (12 to 9) and more players had significantly worse stats than significantly better (6 to 3), but the numbers don’t really jump out at you like you would expect. Yopu also have to consider that players probably do a little worse in the 2nd half anyway, with their bodies tiring, so that may be the reason for part of the slight difference in statistical production we are seeing.