The 700 Level Predicts the 2013 Home Run Derby

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We are here at Citi Field for the 2013 Home Run Derby. It's hot and cramped and there are actually dudes wearing Lucas Duda and Andrew Brown jerseys, but the prospect of eventual HOME RUNS should make it all worthwhile. Domonic Brown is not present, because David Wright is a hater and because Virginia high school baseball ties obviously overrule basic numerical logic when selecting derby participants, but we still have eight of the league's premiere power hitters solemnly pledging to hit the ball over the wall a bunch of times for Chris Berman's and our entertainment. Good enough for a Monday night where absolutely nothing else in sports is happening.

So who's gonna hit the most dingers tonight? Well, it doesn't really matter--if you can name more than two of the last five players to win this thing, you probably did a Sporcle on it earlier today or something. (And before you guess Josh Hamilton, he didn't even technically win his year.) Like the NBA's three-point contest, the winner of these things is usually the guy nobody actually predicts to win, because there's no particularly interesting storyline to it.

Therefore, using the contest's traditional lack of obvious winners as a guiding tool, here's our quasi-paradoxical predictions for the final standings of tonight's longball-off:

8. David Wright (Home team guy never wins)
7. Chris Davis (Actual best home-run hitter never wins)
6. Bryce Harper (Biggest star never wins)
5. Prince Fielder (Last year's winner never wins)
4. Robinson Cano (Primary geographical rival never wins)
3. Pedro Alaverz (Hometown guy never wins)
2. Michael Cuddyer (Nepotistic selection never wins)

That leaves Oakland's Yoenis Cespedes, the entrant with absolutely no connection to derby history, the home team or the host players, and nothing all that interesting about him besides the fact that he's the one guy here not participating in the game proper. That's dangerously close to a real storyline, but it's the least we have from any of the contestants, for sure.

A preemptive congrats to Yoenis, then, for his win at the 2013 Home Run Derby. Sorry for the spoilers, but hey, you can still watch to find out how he gets the win, along with watching David Wright's inevitable disappointment of the home crowd, and seeing who has by far the most homers going into the final round before choking in the finals and ending up as less than a footnote. Gotta love the predictable unpredictability of the Home Run Derby.

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