The 2025 MLB Home Run Derby took place Monday night in Atlanta, with Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh coming out on top. Among the players he bested was Athletics' slugger and former Mississippi State Bulldog Brent Rooker, but the way Raleigh happened to advance past Rooker is, rightfully, falling under scrutiny.
Rooker and Raleigh tied with 17 first round home runs, each with a long of 471 feet (or so we thought). With a spot in the second round on the line, most assumed we'd get a "Swing-off" to determine which of them would advance, something everyone would have loved to see.
Instead, the nerds stepped in. According to MLB's Statcast, Rooker's long home run officially traveled 470.54 feet while Raleigh's went 470.62. That less than 0.1 foot difference gave Raleigh the tiebreaker, which he'd obviously take full advantage of, and ended Rooker's night.
Cal Raleigh advanced by LESS THAN 0.1 FEET 🤯 pic.twitter.com/Xu3BptW9Ej
— MLB (@MLB) July 15, 2025
The problem is this information wasn't provided to the fans or players until after the conclusion of the round. And needless to say, Brent Rooker wasn't particularly pleased that the MLB dropped it on them at the last second.
“You know, maybe if they have it to the decimal point, they should display that during the Derby and not wait till everyone's done to bring out that information that might be helpful." - Brent Rooker on the Home Run Derby tiebreaker pic.twitter.com/8deYftsDEY
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) July 15, 2025
"You know, maybe if they have it to the decimal point, they should display that during the Derby and not wait till everyone's done to bring out that information. That might be helpful."Brent Rooker
It seems logical that letting the players know who owns the tiebreaker in such a situation makes more sense than leaving everyone guessing.
To make matters even worse and the ruling even more questionable, Rooker didn't even get to hit his full allotment of balls. Each player had three minutes to see up to 40 pitches in the first round. Rooker, like several other batters, took a pair of pitches before the clock started so he and his pitcher could get settled in.
The problem is Rooker wasn't told there were only 40 balls in his crate, and the two balls thrown before starting weren't replaced. The other batters that took pitches before starting still got the full 40 available to them. So with five seconds left on the clock, he was out of balls. He absolutely could have gotten two more swings off to have a chance at another home run.
To say that Brent Rooker got the short end of the stick is putting it lightly. Going back to the statcast tiebreaker, how do we even know the distance was accurate? There's got to be some margin for error in the model when we're getting down to a tenth of a foot. Are we really going to allow that miniscule of a margin that's projected by a computer tell us who deserves to advance to the next round when there's a $1 million prize on the line?
It's so painfully obvious that a Swing-off was the way to go here. Not only is it far more fair to the players to not leave it up to a computer model, but it would have been a significantly more entertaining product for the fans. Fans want to see players hit home runs; not be told who advances based on decimal points. But as is often the case with the MLB, maximizing the experience for fans isn't a priority.
There's obviously no guarantee that Brent Rooker would have defeated Cal Raleigh in a Swing-off or win the entire Derby. Maybe literally nothing changes if they take that route. But Rooker deserved to be given a chance, and fans deserved to watch. The MLB let them down.