All hail The Toddfather: Cincinnati’s Todd Frazier wins Home Run Derby
Todd Frazier, Cincinnati’s hometown All-Star, gave the fans exactly what they wanted Monday night at the MLB Home Run Derby: a thrilling show that culminated with triumph and a trophy.
Frazier, with his brother Charlie pitching to him, hit a barrage of homers in the final 90 seconds of the derby finals to beat Los Angeles Dodges rookie Joc Pederson and take home the title that eluded him in 2014.
The Toddfather, as they call him in Cincinnati, is now the home-run derby king of MLB.
The hometown fans were on their feet for every Frazier homer in the final round, particularly his thrilling comeback in the last two minutes. He was down 14-5 at one point, without time ticking away. He needed to turn on the power or lose. So he turned it on.
He tied the contest 14-14 then in bonus time (granted because he hit two homers longer than 425 feet, a new rule this year) Frazier quickly closed out the competition.
“Cincinnati,” Frazier said short after, “We brought it home, baby. It’s about time.”
Pederson, it warrants mention, put on a fantastic show too. He’s already having a great season, but he made noise on the national stage Monday night, knocking a total of 39 homers.
The other winner of the night was the new format, which transformed the derby into a bracket-style competition with timed rounds. While the brackets weren’t exactly fair to Prince Fielder — who crushed 13 homers in the first round, but lost to Todd Frazier’s 14 — the new clock added an element of drama and excitement that the derby has been missing. The format also brought the most homers we’d ever seen in a Home Run Derby.
Buzzer beaters: Usually we see them in basketball, but the new clock gave us baseball’s version. Albert Pujols beat Kris Bryant in Round 1 on a buzzer beater, which was a thrill. Todd Frazier also thrilled in his first two rounds, beating Prince Fielder and Josh Donaldson as time expired.
The original rules for this year when condensed some — four minute rounds instead of five — because MLB was trying to beat an incoming storm in Cincinnati, but the four-minute rounds might have even worked out better. The pace was quick and the event was more exciting than it had been in years past.
Don’t expect major changes in the derby format next year. This was great entertainment.
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Mike Oz is the editor of Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz
