Pete Alonso Sets Sights on Ken Griffey Jr.’s Home Run Derby Record

Getty Pete Alonso celebrates winning the 2019 Home Run Derby.

Pete Alonso is setting his sights on a Home Run Derby feat that only Ken Griffey Jr. has reached before.

The New York Mets first baseman will participate in his fifth-straight Home Run Derby this year, the slugger announced on Sunday, July 7. A win would give him his third Derby title, matching Griffey for the most all-time.

“I am so honored to be selected as an All-Star and represent the @Mets! I’m excited to announce that I will participate in the Home Run Derby!!! #LFGM,” Alonso wrote on Instagram to confirm his participation.

Alonso previously won back-to-back Home Run Derbies in 2019 and 2021. The 2020 Derby was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He fell in each of the last two competitions at the hands of Julio Rodriguez, the 2022 AL Rookie of the Year and an All-Star in his first two big league seasons.

Rodriguez is enduring a down year in 2024 and did not make the All-Star team.

Gunnar Henderson and Alec Bohm are the two other players who have confirmed their participation in this year’s Home Run Derby. The remaining five players should be announced in the coming days. MLB home run leader Aaron Judge (32) and NL home run leader Shohei Ohtani (28) have already declined to participate.

Pete Alonso, Ken Griffey Jr. and Home Run Derby History

The Home Run Derby has a checkered past in MLB lore, but no player has ever encapsulated the event’s glory quite like Griffey.

In 1993, in a Home Run Derby that Juan Gonzalez ultimately won in Baltimore, Griffey had one of the most iconic feats in the event’s history, hitting the warehouse on Eutaw Street, across from Oriole Park at Camden Yards, on the fly. No one had done that before, and no one has done it since.

The next year, he won the Derby in Pittsburgh, just miles from his hometown of Donora, Pennsylvania. He then went back-to-back in ‘98 and ’99, taking his cuts with his trademark backwards hat and wide smile.

Alonso won the 2019 Derby as a rookie, the same season in which he hit 53 home runs for the Mets. With his two wins in his first three seasons in the Majors, Alonso made more money from the Home Run Derby ($2 million) than he did in salary from the Mets ($1.47 million).

Alonso’s Derby legacy is more than just his success. He genuinely loves the event, representing exactly the kind of fun energy baseball is trying to capitalize on with its stable of young talent.

“It’s a super fun event,” he told the New York Post last week.

Last year, when Rodriguez knocked Alonso out with a record 41 home runs in the first round, Alonso sounded more like a fan than a losing competitor.

“Unfortunately ran into a buzz saw,” Alonso said at the time. “He had a ridiculously historic round. That was incredible to watch. Good for him and good for Seattle. It’s awesome.”

Changes to the 2024 Home Run Derby

If Alonso is going to tie Griffey with a third title, he will have to navigate some rule changes compared to past Home Run Derby iterations.

To make the Derby less frantic, players will see a maximum of 40 pitches over, at most, three minutes in the first two rounds. That time drops two minutes in the final round with a 27-pitch maximum.

After the timed round, players will then move into the bonus portion of their at-bat, in which they will have as many swings as it takes to accrue three “outs” (an out is any swing that does not result in a home run). Any home run of 425 feet or more during bonus time will result in a fourth out.