A journey toward forgiveness: Davin Vann has finally found himself years after his sister’s death
-
David Hale, ESPN Staff Writer
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story includes discussions of suicidal ideation.
THERE ARE FORCES at work in the universe that, for most of his life, Davin Vann believed were malevolent. This is what occupied the thoughts of NC State‘s star defensive lineman when he slid into the driver’s seat of his car on Feb. 4, 2024, intent on surrendering to his fate.
Vann has always liked to drive at night. Football had long been an outlet for his anger and isolation, but when he finished practice and film study, a drive calmed him and allowed him to be alone with his thoughts. He’d crank some country music, pull his Mustang onto the highway, watch the road unspool past Raleigh, Apex and Cary — the North Carolina towns where he grew up — and think of all the things that kept him here. He’d think of Kayla.
He was 11 when he watched his 13-year-old sister drown in a neighborhood pool, and for much of the past decade, he had fixated on how it was possible that she was gone while he had been spared.
“For a long time, it felt like God took the wrong kid,” he said. “It felt wrong for me to have the ability to live life and be happy when such a beautiful person was taken.”
Some nights he asked for forgiveness, for some penance he could pay that would ease the guilt that overwhelmed him. Some nights he’d ask for solace, an explanation for how his coaches and teammates at NC State could laud him as a leader while he still felt utterly broken.
On this night, however, he asked for nothing.
“I was just tired of being tired,” he said.
Vann wasn’t planning to die, exactly. That would imply some agency in his life, a feeling he’d long abandoned. Instead, he figured he’d just ease his car onto I-40, inch the accelerator to the floor, then let go.
“Just f— the brakes, see how fast I can go,” Vann said. “I was thinking that if somebody hit me, I wouldn’t care.”
He slumped into his seat, shoved his key into the ignition and twisted.
Nothing.
He twisted again and again, screaming into the ether with righteous indignation, but the engine stayed silent.
For nearly a half-hour, he sat in his car sobbing, begging for mercy as music blared and his windows fogged over. Finally, Vann relented. He went inside his house, still crying, and crawled into bed. When he awoke the next morning, he looked at his phone and found a text from his head coach, Dave Doeren, who’d been on something of a spiritual journey of his own.
“Got something I want to share with you,” the message read. “Can you come see me tomorrow?”
Looking back, Vann said, it’s like something out of a movie — a story he wouldn’t believe if he hadn’t lived it. Vann is the Wolfpack’s senior leader, a fan favorite with 5.5 sacks and 12 tackles for loss, but as he gets set to take the field Thursday night against Georgia Tech (7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN), he’s not doing it alone. That meeting with Doeren would set him on a path toward forgiveness, clarity and family.
There are forces at work in the universe, but they’re not like Vann imagined them.
“I see that night as such a gift,” Vann said. “It was God or the universe or Allah or whatever you want to call it telling me I couldn’t go yet.”
Or maybe, he thinks now, it was Kayla.
DAVIN VANN WAS born Feb. 8, 2002, the fourth of nine children. Kayla, Davin and Rylan, each about two years apart, were the closest. Davin called them “the trio.”
Kayla loved basketball, baking and church. She was bubbly and outgoing. She taught Rylan to cook on her kitchen set. She’d let Davin braid her hair, even though he wasn’t very good at it. They all played sports — an escape from the crowded living room and an avenue for some sense of normalcy after Kayla’s death. They were each members of the swim team, and they spent countless summer afternoons at the Scottish Hills Recreation Club, the neighborhood pool just a quarter-mile walk down a greenway behind their house in Cary, North Carolina.
That’s where they planned to spend the evening of June 8, 2013. Usually, their mother, Joy Hall, or their grandparents, Dave and Joan, would accompany them, but Joy was busy with work, and the grandparents were babysitting the younger kids. Dave offered to drive the trio, dropping them off at the front entrance a little after 5 p.m.
The call to 911 came at 6:36 p.m. A child had been pulled from the water. She was unresponsive. An ambulance arrived four minutes later.
It was an 11-year old Davin who called his mother, who was in Raleigh for work.
“Mom,” he said, “Kayla’s hurt.”
If she had it to do over, Joy wishes she’d understood the weight Davin would carry in the years to come. Kayla was older, but Davin viewed himself as her and Rylan’s protector. Maybe Joy had, too.
Joy met Davin’s father when she was 16. The relationship was fraught from the outset. He was addicted to drugs, Joy said. He’d disappear for weeks. He spent time in prison. He fought with Joy routinely, and the arguments often turned violent.
“It was volatile,” Joy said. “It was scary sometimes. And heartbreaking.”
Joy had her oldest daughter, Brittany, when she was 17. Deanna, Kayla, Davin and Rylan followed over the next 10 years. Rylan was just 6 weeks old, Joy said, when she came home from an errand one afternoon to find the kids’ father smoking crack in the living room, the baby asleep on the couch next to him. She told him to leave. He beat her, and he took her car, and, after a handful of visits, he eventually disappeared from their lives.
Things weren’t easy after that, but they were better. Joy met Donald Haley, and they had four more kids together — Lola, Duckie, Rose and Vinnie. Donald had grown up in the foster care system, so he was eager to adopt the older kids, too. Family, for him, didn’t have to be blood. They weren’t poor, Davin said, but with nine kids to feed, there was never quite enough to go around. What they did have, Joy said, were the scars of those early years of abuse and fear.
“We didn’t grow up saying ‘I love you’ all the time,” Davin said. “Nobody liked talking about their emotions.”
Perhaps, Davin said, they just weren’t equipped to process their feelings back then. He understands now that, when Joy was confronted with the loss of her daughter, she didn’t appreciate the fragility of the 11-year-old boy on the other end of the phone. She couldn’t console. She wanted answers. How did this happen? Where was he when she was under water? Why hadn’t he noticed?
What Davin heard was a question that has hung with him like a weight around his neck ever since. Why hadn’t he saved her?
THE KIDS SCATTERED in different directions when they arrived at the pool that night, each to their own clique of friends. Kayla had asked Rylan to play with her, but he had scurried off with his own crowd instead.
“If I’d said yes, that might’ve changed everything,” said Rylan, now a sophomore offensive lineman at NC State. “That’s something I held deeply for my whole life.”
The Scottish Hills pool is not large. It’s zigzag-shaped with a deeper side, close to 9 feet, and a shallow side around 4 feet deep. At the time, there was a diving board at one end next to the lifeguard tower, and that’s where Davin had been playing. Joy learned later that Kayla had been underwater for somewhere between five and 10 minutes before anyone noticed. A neighborhood girl whom Kayla would sometimes babysit was the one who first realized something was wrong. The girl’s grandfather dove into the pool and pulled Kayla to the side.
The lifeguard blew a whistle, and a crowd scrambled out of the pool. That’s when Rylan first saw his sister splayed on the concrete. He screamed for Davin, who raced to Kayla’s side. Someone was doing chest compressions. She coughed up a mixture of blood and water.
“I tried to convince myself it wasn’t as bad as it looked,” Davin said.
In the moments after the 911 call, Rylan sat astride a ball machine on the nearby tennis courts as medics worked on his sister, convincing himself she would be fine. He’d see her in the hospital. She’d be awake. She’d hug him and laugh like she always had, and they’d bake a treat on her kitchen set when she got home.
After calling his mother and grandmother, Davin stumbled in a daze to a bench in the courtyard adjacent to the pool where he sat alone, crying and praying.
“The ambulance came and took her away,” Davin said. “I said goodbye to my friends. I don’t really remember the rest of that day. Or, really, that whole time in my life.”
Joy sped from Raleigh to Cary and beat the ambulance to the hospital. Kayla was alive, but her responses were “combative,” suggesting severe brain damage.
At 4 a.m. on Sunday, June 9, Joy and Donald were called back to Kayla’s room. She’d taken a turn, and things looked bleak. Joy called her parents and begged them to return to the hospital.
“I’m a Christian,” Joy said, “but they’re Christians far beyond what I am. And I thought, maybe if they pray for her, she’ll be saved.”
An autopsy showed no trauma to Kayla’s head or neck, no damage to her heart that would suggest a medical event had preceded her drowning. Fluid was found in her lungs. Her official cause of death was heart failure brought on by oxygen deprivation.
Joy begged the town of Cary to investigate, but officials insisted it was an accident. ESPN filed a Freedom of Information Act request for any documents pertaining to a police investigation and was told no such reports exist. At the time, Joy didn’t have the resources or the willpower to push back. She eventually filed a lawsuit, but without a police investigation, she had little evidence of wrongdoing. The sides eventually settled.
“They just said, ‘This is what we think your kid’s life was worth,’ and that was it,” she said.
It fell to Joy to explain to the other kids that Kayla died. What has stayed with her is the sound Rylan made when she told him — an anguished howl that still haunts her now.
So much of what happened after that is a blur.
That day, Joy walked the trail behind their house that led down to the pool, and she thought of the future Kayla would never enjoy.
“So many things get taken when a kid is just 13,” Joy said. “It just seems so terribly unfair.”
Brittany graduated from high school two days after Kayla died. The family was there, but it was just a formality. There was no celebration. There are pictures but not memories.
The funeral was held the next day. Seeing his sister in the coffin is the one clear memory Davin has of that week.
“I didn’t know when you die,” Davin said, “the body you see in the coffin, it doesn’t look like the person you knew.”
Davin retreated inward. That has always been his defense mechanism when times are hard. Joy has seen it happen on the football field after a bad play, but back then, she was too mired in her own grief to understand the implications of Davin’s silence.
What she remembers instead is a night soon after the funeral. She was lying in her bed, sobbing, and Davin came in to console her. He didn’t know what to say, so he just reached out and rubbed her foot.
“And I just thought, ‘What a sweet boy,'” Joy said.
For the next 10 years, though, Davin did not see a sweet boy. He saw a mistake.
DAVIN WEARS NO. 1 at NC State, which is intended as an honor. Each year, Doeren awards the jersey number to the player who best embodies the leadership skills he wants the team to emulate. Doeren met with Davin before his freshman season and predicted he’d one day be a team captain. Now it was reality.
“There’s this lion inside him,” Doeren said.
Davin wanted no part of it.
There was a sentimental reason, he said. He wore No. 45 — two digits that, summed, equal nine. Nine for the number of kids in his family. Nine was Kayla’s basketball jersey. Nine had meaning.
But that was an excuse. Davin really wanted to hide from a spotlight he didn’t think he deserved. He saw leadership as a burden, and he’d spent years carrying so many already.
The darkness that followed Kayla’s death festered and metastasized inside him. As a boy, he acted out, then drew further inward. He remembers little from Kayla’s death until high school, years lost in a fog. He got in trouble. Not real trouble, Joy said, just kid stuff, but Davin is not so sure. He can laugh now about the time he and Rylan acted out their favorite wrestling moves, only for Rylan’s tooth to end up stuck in Davin’s hand — one brother needing a root canal and the other needing hand surgery. But there were worse things, too, Davin said. Things he’s ashamed of in retrospect, such as bringing a knife to school; decisions born from hanging out with the wrong crowd and a simmering fury he held inside.
“I felt like the world was against me,” Davin said. “I didn’t want to listen to anybody about anything.”
Sports allowed Davin a chance to vent his anger without drawing attention. He blossomed in wrestling and football, recording 17 sacks and earning a Shrine Bowl invitation as a senior at Cary High School. He had dozens of scholarship offers, but he chose NC State to remain close to home. Davin never looked at his memories of Kayla straight on, but he couldn’t leave her behind, either.
Davin’s college career progressed just as Doeren had envisioned. By his third season, he was a full-time starter at defensive end. The next year, he was one of the most productive pass rushers in the ACC. He considered the NFL draft, and when he announced he would return for one final season with the Wolfpack, the fan base celebrated.
Davin couldn’t understand any of it.
“A lot of guys talk about how they go through hardships and injuries and stuff like that, but for me it was the opposite,” he said. “My hardship came from the success I was having. It felt like no matter what I did or how hard I worked for it, I didn’t deserve any of the accolades or success or publicity. It felt wrong.”
The people around him inevitably called him humble. Joy won’t argue with the characterization, but she knows there is more to it.
“Sometimes he really didn’t know why anyone wanted him to play college football,” Joy said. “He’d say, ‘I’m not very good.’ He’s just really hard on himself.”
Davin minored in psychology at NC State, and in those courses he learned terms such as suicidal ideation and survivor’s guilt and imposter syndrome. He had them all. But he also believed something more profound about himself: that the universe saw past his success to something deeper, something ugly and unfixable. It’s what led him to the front seat of his Mustang that night.
At almost that same moment, Doeren was on a Zoom with a Canadian performance coach he’d found on social media, deep in meditation. And he’d just had a revelation.
DOEREN WAS IN his office in late October 2023, lamenting his team’s blowout loss to rival Duke. NC State had begun the season with high expectations, but the Wolfpack were instead 4-3, and their starting quarterback had just quit the team to pursue a transfer. Criticism had been mounting, and Doeren was at a breaking point. To clear his head, he pulled out his phone and began thumbing through his Instagram feed, where he found Dan de Luis.
The video that caught Doeren’s attention was titled “Five Rules to Provide More Peace of Mind.” In it, de Luis strolls through a leafy field in Mallorytown, Ontario, and he implores his followers to ignore external critics and look inward for a path to betterment.
Doeren is an old-school, blue-collar football coach who’s not inclined to buy into a motivational pitch from a social media influencer, but he watched this “hippy-dippy life coach” with rapt attention.
“It was like he was talking to me,” Doeren said.
Doeren was so inspired by the message, he picked up his phone and called his friend, artist John Bukaty, to share the moment. He urged Bukaty to watch the video, too, and it sparked an idea.
“There’s a reason you saw that,” Bukaty told Doeren. “I’m going to call him.”
Doeren shrugged it off, but within the hour, his phone rang.
De Luis sports a chest-length beard, scraggly and streaked with gray, and he’s almost always wearing a ski cap and a T-shirt, often emblazoned with the logo of a favorite rock band. He has worked with hundreds of “high-performance” clients, from NHL stars to Olympians to Fortune 500 CEOs. On Instagram, he has 410,000 followers. He offers reassuring self-help mantras with practiced empathy.
The centerpiece of his practice is a method of intentional, deep breathing designed to “flex” the circulatory system, which can create physiological and psychological responses that de Luis calls a “flow state,” in which clients often report an ability to confront long-held trauma or discover life-altering realizations — a “cathartic release,” de Luis calls it.
On that first call, de Luis taught Doeren some basic breathing techniques designed to calm his mind and center his focus. They kept at it, and by week’s end, the lessons helped Doeren shed the noise and distractions that had clouded his thinking, allowing him to focus on the steps he needed to remedy a spiraling season. He gave an emphatic speech to his team later that week in which he told players to either buy in or get out. He named a new starting QB, whom the players rallied behind. It was a turning point, and the Wolfpack would win their next five games.
Doeren and de Luis stayed in touch in the months that followed. During one of those “flow states” in a session in February, Doeren had an epiphany: “Davin needs this.”
Doeren believes one of his best assets as a coach is an ability to connect with his players, and for weeks, he’d seen Davin retreat from interactions with teammates, keep quiet during meetings, slouch in his seat and shuffle through the locker room. Doeren saw a player who needed help.
Doeren hedged the introduction as a favor Davin could do for the team. He thought de Luis’ sessions could be useful for the players, and he wanted Davin to give it a try and provide feedback. (De Luis now accompanies the team before games and works with as many as 40 players.)
Davin worked with de Luis via Zoom for a few months — “Beginning to crack the door open,” de Luis said — but in April, de Luis flew to Raleigh for a three-day retreat at Doeren’s lake house. De Luis hoped he could push the door fully open.
“This works if you’re ready,” de Luis told him.
“I’m ready,” Davin said.
They practiced breathing in the morning, did yoga in the afternoon, and finished the day with meditative breathing aimed at relaxing the body before sleep.
Davin was amazed with the results. He could exhale and hold his breath for five, 10 minutes. At one point, he reeled off 100 push-ups while taking just a single breath. He felt relaxed, open, free from the weight he’d carried for so long.
In between sessions, Davin and de Luis talked about what had led them here. De Luis calls this “set and setting” — creating an atmosphere where people reluctant to share emotions feel more comfortable being vulnerable.
“What you’re holding inside,” de Luis told him, “that demon, that animal — the strongest thing a man can do is say he needs help.”
Growing up, Davin and Rylan had shared a bedroom, and in all those years, they’d never once talked about the day Kayla died. It was only after Davin left for NC State, when Rylan would make regular weekend trips to stay with his brother, that the veil finally lifted. It was Davin’s sophomore year, and the brothers were up late, playing video games and watching TV, and somehow they started talking about Kayla. They were surprised how often their perceptions of what happened diverged. They talked about the guilt they felt, and they were surprised at how much of that they shared. It was cathartic, Davin says now, but it wasn’t a wholesale change. He still wasn’t ready to truly face what happened, he said. Acceptance meant Kayla was really gone.
De Luis had endured trauma, too, and he shared his story willingly — about the “intense” father, the bouts of severe anxiety and depression, about the back injury that left him virtually bedridden for nearly two years in his 20s, and about finding salvation in yoga and breathing exercises at precisely the moment he hit rock bottom.
Davin listened, and his defenses began to crumble. Eventually, his whole story came out — the guilt and the anger and the grief. It was a moment he had run from for more than half his life, and now that he had faced it, he felt relief.
That was the lesson, de Luis told him. Davin had used his anger over his sister’s death as his motivation for so long, but it had only led him deeper into despair. It was time to focus on his love for Kayla instead.
“Dan had told me I can’t hold on to my past,” Davin said. “It’s a stepping stone I need to learn to live with, but it’s not me.”
On the last morning of the retreat, de Luis had Davin wade into Lake Gaston. It was 40 degrees and the water was freezing, but as Davin inhaled and exhaled with measured precision, the discomfort disappeared, and his thoughts turned to Kayla.
He could see her now. She was not angry with him. She loved him, and she wanted him to be happy.
“Kayla’s death changed the mindset of an 11-year-old boy. It put me in a victim mentality,” Davin said. “I’ve changed my mindset. I’m doing it for her now. She can’t be here, but I’m trying to let her live vicariously through me by being the best I can be.”
Davin and de Luis drove back to Raleigh blaring Zach Bryan and Luke Combs, and when they arrived on campus, Davin rushed to see Doeren. He grabbed his coach and hugged him — “Like I’ve never been hugged before,” Doeren said — and when he let go, his eyes welled with tears, and he smiled.
“Thank you, Coach,” he said. “You saved my life.”
THERE IS NOT a clean denouement to Davin’s story. He’s in a better place, but he still fights the battles, he said. On Oct. 5, in a game against Wake Forest, NC State quarterback Grayson McCall was hit by a defender, who buried his helmet under McCall’s chin. The QB crumbled to the ground and laid there, motionless. Vann ambled to the sidelines in a daze, sobbing. The scene — the unconscious body, the terrified onlookers, the scrambling trainers and doctors — it was too familiar. After games, Rylan always brings his mom a Gatorade, and Davin delivers hugs and recounts his plays. This time, the brothers were quiet, said their goodbyes and went straight home. Old habits, Davin said. But he could still breathe and refocus and find his way back.
“I’m in a lot better spot,” Davin said. “I won’t say I don’t deal with mental health issues, but I’m better at dealing with them.”
Davin and his mother talk often of Kayla now — and about what her loss meant to their family. Davin now understands that the weight he carried, Joy carried, too. Joy has found enough distance to understand that her pain kept her from seeing all the hurt her boys held for so long.
“We’ve talked about it a lot,” Joy said. “He’s told me he’s been…”
She can’t say it, but she knows. She was there, too.
“Dark moments,” she said. “Scary.”
She has regrets. They all do. But they don’t dwell on them.
“Did Kayla know that I loved her that much? That’s a regret I have,” Joy said. “Because of all the things I had going on, I didn’t say ‘I love you’ all the time to my kids. Now we do say it. The boys always tell me, every time I hang up the phone.”
That’s a gift. A gift from Kayla.
“We’ll never understand why things happen,” Joy said. “Not just with Kayla. We don’t understand the plan. We just have to appreciate that she was here for the 13 years we got to hang out with her and appreciate the things that make us tougher than where we started.”
Maybe this is how the universe works.
A girl went into a pool and stopped breathing. Her brother found football as an outlet for his grief, went to a college where his coach introduced him to a healer who taught comfort through breathing. The breathing saved his life.
There are forces at work in the universe that Davin will never understand, but he sees them more clearly now.
“It’s hard to think about, but how would life have turned out if none of that happened?” Davin said. “Of course I wish it didn’t, but how close would our family be? Would we still be in those bad habits we were back then? It’s crazy to think about.”
In August, Davin stood at the head of NC State’s team meeting room to deliver his senior speech. In front of him were more than 120 coaches and teammates. Aside from Doeren and Rylan, no one knew his whole story, but he was finally ready to share.
“I wanted to show people that I’m human, too,” Davin said. “I wanted to be as honest as I could be.”
He hadn’t written the speech down, but he’d practiced what he wanted to say a dozen times at least. At lunch before the team meeting, Davin and Rylan sat together, going over the introduction again and again to get it just right.
How do you start to talk about something so big?
Breathe, Davin thought. Take the first step. Breathe again, and trust that the universe has put you here for a reason, that there are people here who need to hear your story.
And so he told them about Kayla and Joy and Rylan and the pain and the anger and the guilt and the hopelessness and, at last, the refuge, forgiveness and love he found in his family and his team and, yes, the sister who’d been there all along.
“Growing up, it didn’t feel like she was with me. It felt like she was gone,” Davin said. “I wasn’t ready to let her be with me. I wasn’t ready for the truth. Now, I pray before every game. It sounds crazy, but I talk to her — ‘I hope you’re up there watching.’ I tell her what I want to do, and that I do it for her.
“I ask her to protect me.”
If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide or is in emotional distress, contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or at 988lifeline.org.
This year, the MLB All-Star Game isn’t just a collection of the game’s biggest stars, but a glimpse at baseball history in the making.
The 2025 Midsummer Classic marks the unofficial midway point of some of the greatest seasons the sport has ever seen.
Will Home Run Derby champion Cal Raleigh — aka the Big Dumper — set a new standard for slugging catchers? Will Shohei Ohtani score more runs in a season than any living person has ever seen? Will Aaron Judge … top Aaron Judge?
As Major League Baseball’s best convene in Atlanta, Bradford Doolittle and David Schoenfield break down 11 players who are halfway to history. For each player, ESPN MLB reporters Jorge Castillo and Jesse Rogers asked one of their fellow All-Stars to weigh in on their accomplishments, as they get set to take the field together at Truist Park.
Cal Raleigh: Greatest season for a catcher — ever
The most impressive thing he could accomplish: Well, we can add Home Run Derby champion to the list after Raleigh’s impressive showing Monday night. With 38 home runs through 96 team games, Raleigh is on pace for 64, which would break Judge’s American League record of 62 set in 2022. That’s the big one. There are a whole bunch of other records in play: most home runs by a switch hitter (Mickey Mantle, 54); most home runs by a primary catcher (Salvador Perez, 48); most multihomer games in a season (Raleigh has eight, the record is 11); and even highest catcher WAR in a season (Mike Piazza with 8.7 bWAR, Raleigh is on pace for 8.4; Buster Posey with 9.8 fWAR, Raleigh is on pace for 10.4). In other words, he could have the greatest season ever for a catcher.
How he’s doing it: Raleigh has always been better against right-handed pitching, but he has been absolutely crushing lefties in 2025, hitting .337/.385/.861 with 16 home runs in only 101 at-bats. Overall, he also has been much better against velocity. From 2022 to 2024, he slugged .418 against pitches 93 mph or faster; this year, he’s slugging .664. — Schoenfield
An All-Star’s take: “It’s wild. I mean, he’s having a crazy year and it’s awesome that he’s doing it from behind the plate. And what he’s doing is unbelievable. It’s hard to describe. It’s amazing to see.” — Colorado Rockies catcher Hunter Goodman
Aaron Judge: Most total bases since the Great Depression
The most impressive thing he could accomplish: Judge closed out the first half with a quiet day against the Chicago Cubs but is still on pace to record 435 total bases this season. You could pick any one of a dozen categories in which Judge is on a historic pace, but this simple old-school measure will do just fine. The record is held by Babe Ruth (457 in 1921), so Judge would have to somehow pick up the pace to surpass that. But 435 would still be epic. The last player to reach that number was Jimmie Foxx in 1932.
How he’s doing it: Judge has become more aggressive at the plate without sacrificing contact or power. But it’s not only ball-in-play volume: He’s hitting an incredible .425 when getting the bat on the ball, which fuels his MLB-leading .355 batting average. That BABIP would be the third-highest ever if Judge maintained it, which obviously affects the total bases column. So too does Judge’s intentional walks pace (41). He’d be only the fourth player to top 40. — Doolittle
An All-Star’s take: “He started off hot this year, which normally in years past, he doesn’t start off hot like he did this year. And now you see it. He always finishes strong. I mean, I don’t know what he ends up with. Hopefully he hits like 70 homers. That’d be sick.” — New York Yankees left-hander Carlos Rodon
Shohei Ohtani: One run scored for every game
The most impressive thing he could accomplish: Although his pace has slowed a bit the past couple of weeks, Ohtani has scored 89 runs in 94 games, giving him a chance at a run scored per game. Ohtani had been on pace for 160 runs, which only Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig have done since 1900. He’s still on pace for 150 runs, which only Ted Williams and Jeff Bagwell have done since World War II. The last player with more runs scored than games played, with at least 100 games played: Rickey Henderson in 1985 (146 runs in 143 games). If that’s not enough to impress you, there is the chance for a second straight 50-homer season and a fourth career MVP award. If the latter happens, he’ll join Barry Bonds as the only player with more than three MVP awards.
How he’s doing it: It helps to be a leadoff man with power, as Ohtani leads the National League in both plate appearances and home runs. The first three months, Ohtani also had a great trio hitting behind him in Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Will Smith, but his runs scored pace has dropped off in July as he has hit just .175, and Betts and Freeman have also slumped. — Schoenfield
An All-Star’s take: “As his teammate and fellow competitor, to see what he does on both sides of the field, it’s incredible. How much power he has as a hitter. He’s got 30-plus homers already at the break. He’s hitting .300 or whatever. And, yeah, he’s going out there on the mound and throwing 102, striking out the side. And these are his rehab games. He’s not even all the way back yet, full-go yet. It’s incredible to watch. Fortunately, I get to see all the work he puts in every day, which is really cool. It’s really special what he’s doing.” — Los Angeles Dodgers catcher Will Smith
Paul Skenes: Two sub-2.00 ERA seasons before turning 25
The most impressive thing he could accomplish: Skenes’ ERA at the break is an NL-best 2.01. His career mark is 1.98 over 43 starts. There is all kinds of history around this level of stifling run prevention. As it stands, Skenes joins Ed Walsh, Addie Joss and Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown with at least 40 starts and a sub-2.00 career ERA in the AL or NL. If Skenes drops his 2025 number below 2.00, he’d be the 31st pitcher to have two or more sub-2.00 ERA seasons of at least 20 starts. Only two of those pitchers did it by age 23: Walter Johnson and Ed Reulbach, both more than 100 years ago.
How he’s doing it: Skenes’ strikeout rate (9.7 per nine innings) is down 1.8 from last year. Yet his FIP (an NL-best 2.41) is actually better because of his league-best homer rate (0.4 per nine innings). Simply put, Skenes is learning how to manage the pure dominance of his arsenal, revving it up when needed. Skenes is not exactly pitching to contact — his stuff is just too good to not miss a lot of bats — but his pitch efficiency is better, and that’s getting him deeper into games. His style has evolved, but one big thing has remained steady: Nobody can score off him. — Doolittle
An All-Star’s take: “Obviously, the first thing that stands out is his stuff, right? And the second thing you look at is the composure. He’s kind of new to the league and just from watching some of his preparation, his composure on the mound, I feel like that’s what makes him successful. He started to add a couple of new pitches to his arsenal and it’s going to make him tougher. He’s got the military background, so I think that’s where he gets a lot of his discipline and everything from. He’s challenging, but it is fun to compete against him.” — St. Louis Cardinals infielder Brendan Donovan
Tarik Skubal: Top five strikeout-to-walk season of all time
The most impressive thing he could accomplish: Skubal has struck out 9.56 batters for every one he has walked. Only four qualifying pitchers have ever done better: Phil Hughes (11.63, 2014), Bret Saberhagen (11.00, 1994), Cliff Lee (10.28, 2010) and Curt Schilling (9.58, 2002). The leaderboard is dominated by wild-card era pitchers, with its heightened whiff rates. But according to FanGraphs’ plus-statistics, which compare numbers to league averages, Skubal’s index of 368 ranks 18th all time. His mastery works in any era.
How he’s doing it: Skubal has already had two games this season in which he has struck out 13 batters on fewer than 100 pitches. Simply put, his command keeps him in the zone more than any qualifying pitcher (49.7%, per FanGraphs). But it also allows him to pitch outside of it on his terms. To wit: Skubal also leads the majors in inducing swings on pitches out of the zone (37.2%). It’s a lethal combination. — Doolittle
An All-Star’s take: “Even on game days, he’s working before the game like he’s not pitching that day. Even on the off days, he’s at the field doing something. He does a whole routine. I faced him in spring training and was looking for one pitch — when that pitch came, I didn’t hit it. He knows what hitters are looking for.” — Detroit Tigers outfielder Javier Baez
The most impressive thing he could accomplish: Before the 2023 season, there had been only four 40-homer/40-steal seasons in big league history, and the 40/50 club was memberless. Now Crow-Armstrong is on a 42-homer, 46-steal pace at the break. He could join Ronald Acuna Jr. (41 homers, 73 steals in 2023) and Shohei Ohtani (54 homers, 59 steals last season) in one or both clubs, giving us a three-year run of expanding membership. This one would be the most stunning of all. PCA entered the season with 10 homers, 29 steals and an 83 OPS+ in his career. His rise has been flat-out stunning.
How he’s doing it: The steals part of Crow-Armstrong’s game was already there, though he’s picked up the pace in 2025, already matching his 27 steals from last season. Any time he reaches safely, he’s a threat to take an extra base. That is unless he’s trotting around the bags after mashing yet another homer. Crow-Armstrong is hitting the ball harder more often, getting more balls in the air and pulling it more frequently. All of this could explain an isolated power uptick, but nothing really can explain the degree to which PCA has lifted off. — Doolittle
An All-Star’s take: “He’s a much better defender than me. He has a much better arm. He’s a really complete player. I don’t think I would have guessed he would have the power numbers he’s showing this year, but I guess people would have said that about me too. His ability to pull the ball in the air has been the difference for him, I think. He hits the ball so hard, all over the stadium.” — Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder Corbin Carroll
Junior Caminero: 40 home runs in age-21 season
The most impressive thing he could accomplish: In his first full season in the majors, Caminero enters the All-Star break with 23 home runs in the 97 games the Tampa Bay Rays have played, giving him a season pace of 38. Though he turned 22 earlier this month, Caminero is in his age-21 season, so he can join Eddie Mathews (47 in 1953) and Ronald Acuna Jr. (41 in 2019) as the only players to reach 40 home runs at that age.
How he’s doing it: Caminero has the second-quickest bat in the majors via Statcast’s bat tracking measurements and he uses that bat speed to punish fastballs. He’s slugging .692 against four-seam fastballs — and .793 against four-seam fastballs 95-plus mph. He has received some help from the Rays’ temporary home stadium, George Steinbrenner Field, hitting .316 with 14 home runs at home. That’s worth noting as the Rays will have a road-heavy schedule through the end of August. — Schoenfield
An All-Star’s take: “He’s a special talent. I mean, his bat speed’s insane. I saw him in spring training [with the Rays], basically, but, yeah, he’s a special talent. Hard-working kid. I’m excited to watch him. They’re mature at-bats. He came up, I was hurt during the playoffs in ’23, and I thought he had some of the most mature, calm at-bats I’d seen for a young kid. Especially to come up in the playoffs, he didn’t let the situation get too big. I think he’s going to be here for a long time, a lot of years.” — San Diego Padres (and former Tampa Bay Rays) reliever Jason Adam
Corbin Carroll: 40 home runs, 20 triples, 20 stolen bases
The most impressive thing he could accomplish: The third-year speedster is back in the All-Star Game after failing to be selected last year, and showing again why he’s one of the most exciting players in the majors. He has an outside shot at becoming the first player with 40 home runs, 20 triples and 20 stolen bases in the same season. Yes, that’s a bit of statistical free-for-all, but it displays Carroll’s power, speed and hustle. Those odds were hurt when he sat out a couple of weeks because of a chip fracture in his left wrist, but in his first 79 games, he had 21 home runs, 10 triples and 11 stolen bases. Even if those numbers are out of reach, he could be the third member of the 35/15/20 club, joining Chuck Klein and Willie Mays.
How he’s doing it: We mentioned hustle, because the triples are the key category here, and Carroll is the best triples hitter in the majors in a long time, hitting 10 as a rookie in 2023 and 14 in 2024, leading the NL both seasons. He also has tweaked his swing and is hitting the ball harder this season and hitting it more often in the air, so he should soar past his previous career high of 25 home runs. — Schoenfield
An All-Star’s take: “There is no hole, really. It’s hard to find new ways to get him out. He’s one of the best in baseball. He’s so quick and twitchy. I don’t get many fastballs by him.” — San Francisco Giants right-hander Logan Webb
The most impressive thing he could accomplish: Witt’s doubles pace has ebbed a little, perhaps in part because some of the balls that were swelling his two-bagger column earlier have been leaving the yard of late. Still, Witt is on pace for 53 doubles, which would be the most by an American Leaguer in six years. That number would also challenge Hal McRae’s franchise record of 54 doubles set in 1977. Witt’s overall numbers aren’t quite as spectacular as last season, but he remains a top-five MVP candidate in the AL. Witt hasn’t gone on a true heater yet this season, but MLB pitchers beware: He has come out of the All-Star break in each of the past two seasons and gone on an extended tear.
How he’s doing it: Everything about Witt’s game — durability, aggressiveness, contact, swing plain, speed, home venue — suggests a player who is annually going to rank near the top of the charts in doubles, among many other categories. If only he didn’t hit so many triples and homers. — Doolittle
An All-Star’s take: “I can’t get him out. It’s just a tough at-bat. And [he] plays the game really, really hard. Some of the stars look cool and play it a little bit slower. Bobby is always playing the game really hard. A single is a victory against him, but he’s going to turn it into a double most of the time.” — Detroit Tigers right-hander Casey Mize
Kyle Tucker: 30 home runs, 40 stolen bases, 120 runs scored
The most impressive thing he could accomplish: With 17 home runs, 22 stolen bases and 68 runs scored, Tucker is showing Cubs fans the all-around brilliance that earned him a fourth consecutive All-Star selection. That puts him on pace to join the exclusive club of 30 homers, 40 stolen bases and 120 runs — which has only 11 members (with Bobby Bonds having done it twice). At a minimum, Tucker would love to join the 30/30 club, which he just missed in 2023 with 29 home runs and 30 stolen bases.
How he’s doing it: Tucker’s career high in runs scored is 97, so joining the explosive Cubs offense has helped in that department. So has moving up in the lineup: He has mostly hit second for the Cubs after often hitting fifth for the Houston Astros (at least until last season). He has been a little more aggressive stealing bases to give him a shot at 40, and does it with great success, getting caught only once so far. — Doolittle
An All-Star’s take: “He stays in there against lefties, knows how to use the whole field. And knows what a strike is. He stays in the zone a long time. I got lucky this year. It was the one game he missed. He’s one of the tougher left-handed outs.” — Washington Nationals left-hander MacKenzie Gore
Byron Buxton: The perfect stolen-base season
The most impressive thing he could accomplish: Buxton just hit for the cycle and — knock on wood — he has been healthy so far, so he’s on track for a career high in many categories, including his first 30-homer season. But the fun number: He’s 17-for-17 in stolen-base attempts. Only six players have swiped at least 20 bases in a season without getting caught, with Trea Turner’s 30-for-30 with the Philadelphia Phillies in 2023 the single-season high.
How he’s doing it: Buxton has always been a terrific high percentage base stealer, including a 29-for-30 mark in 2017 and a 90% success rate in his career, but the surprising thing about his 2025 totals is perhaps that he’s even stealing bases at all, given all the injuries in his career. It would be easy for the Minnesota Twins to just shut him down on the basepaths — much like the Los Angeles Angels did years ago with Mike Trout — but the 31-year-old Buxton is running more than he has since he was 23. — Schoenfield
An All-Star’s take: “He’s one of the best players in the game when he’s healthy and when he’s playing out there. I think the biggest thing I’ve noticed from him is that it seems like his internal clock is just at a pace this year. It’s not like it flashes where he’s going crazy and then he’s backing off. It’s consistent. It’s just that consistent heartbeat. It’s like he’s running a marathon at an insane pace. He’s going to run a sub-three-hour marathon or something. He’s cruising along and it’s just fun to watch him play.” — Minnesota Twins right-hander Joe Ryan
-
Bill Connelly
Back in May, ESPN’s team of college football reporters voted on the sport’s best coaches for 2025. The results were about as you would expect: Start with the three active guys who have most recently won national titles (Georgia’s Kirby Smart, Ohio State’s Ryan Day, Clemson’s Dabo Swinney), move on to guys with recent top-five finishes or national title game appearances (Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman, Texas’ Steve Sarkisian, Oregon’s Dan Lanning, Alabama’s Kalen DeBoer, Penn State’s James Franklin), then squeeze in a couple of long-term overachievers at the end (Utah’s Kyle Whittingham, Iowa State’s Matt Campbell).
The rankings made plenty of sense, but I couldn’t help but notice that the top eight coaches on the list all work for some of the richest, most well-supported programs in the country. There are some epic pressures associated with leading these programs — just ask Day — but there are also major advantages. It might only take a good head coach to do great things in those jobs, while at programs with smaller alumni bases or lesser historic track records, it might take a great coach to do merely good things. They’re such different jobs that it’s almost impossible to even know how to compare the performance of, say, Matt Campbell to Steve Sarkisian. Could Campbell have led Texas to back-to-back CFP semifinals? Could Sark have brought ISU its first two AP top-15 finishes?
The May rankings made me want to see if there were a way to apply stats to the conversation. If you think about it, we’re basically measuring two things when we’re gauging coach performance: overall quality and quality relative to the expectations of the job. I thought it would be fun to come up with a blend of those two things and see what the results told us.
Performance versus expectation
Gauging overall performance is easy enough. You could simply look at win percentage, and it would tell you quite a bit. From 2015 to 2024, the active coaches with the best FBS win percentages (minimum 30 games) were Day (.870), Lanning (.854), Swinney (.850) and Smart (.847). All ranked high in the May rankings. I tend to want to get fancy and use my SP+ ratings whenever possible, and they tell a similar tale. Looking at average SP+ ratings for the past decade, the top active coaches are Day (30.4), Smart (27.0), Lanning (22.3), Swinney (21.9), Franklin (20.3) and Freeman (19.0). They’re all in the May top 10 too.
Again, though, all of those coaches are employed by college football royalty. (Granted, Swinney gets bonus points for helping Clemson turn into college football royalty, but still.) Isn’t it more impressive to win 11 regular-season games at Indiana, as Curt Cignetti did in 2024, than to go 10-4 like Swinney did? Isn’t it probably harder to finish 12th in SP+ at SMU, as Rhett Lashlee did in 2024, than to finish fifth like Franklin did?
I’ve begun to incorporate teams’ performance against long-term averages into my preseason SP+ projections, and it seems we could use a very similar concept to evaluate coach performances. For each year someone is a head coach, we could compare his team’s SP+ rating for that season to the school’s average from the 20 previous years. (If the school is newer to FBS and doesn’t have a 20-year average, we can use whatever average exists to date. And for a program’s first FBS season, we can simply compare the team’s SP+ rating to the overall average for first-year programs.)
By this method, the 10 best single-season coaching performances of the past 20 years include Art Briles at Baylor in 2013-14, Jim Harbaugh at Stanford in 2010, Mark Mangino at Kansas in 2007, Bobby Petrino at Louisville in 2006, Greg Schiano at Rutgers in 2006 and Jamey Chadwell at Coastal Carolina in 2020 — legendary seasons of overachievement — plus perhaps lesser-remembered performances such as Gary Andersen at Utah State in 2012, Matt Wells at Utah State in 2018 and Brian Kelly at Cincinnati in 2007.
As far as single-season overachievement goes, that’s a pretty good list. And if we look at a longer-term sample — coaches who have led FBS programs for at least nine of the past 20 years — here are the 15 best performance versus baseline averages.
(Note: I’m looking only at performances within the past 20 years, so Nick Saban’s work at LSU (2000-04) or Michigan State (1995-99), for instance, isn’t included. I also went with nine years instead of 10 so Smart’s current nine-year run at Georgia could be included in the sample.)
Best performance vs. historic baseline averages for the past 20 years (min. nine seasons):
1. Chris Petersen, Boise State (2006-13) and Washington (2014-19): +12.8 points above historic baseline
2. Art Briles, Houston (2005-07) and Baylor (2008-15): +12.8
3. Gary Pinkel, Missouri (2005-15): +12.5
4. Nick Saban, Alabama (2007-23): +10.7
5. Jeff Monken, Army (2014-24): +10.3
6. Willie Fritz, Georgia Southern (2014-15), Tulane (2016-23) and Houston (2024): +10.0
7. Lance Leipold, Buffalo (2015-20) and Kansas (2021-24): +9.5
8. Bobby Petrino, Louisville (2005-06), Arkansas (2008-11), Western Kentucky (2013) and Louisville (2014-18): +9.5
9. Gary Patterson, TCU (2005-21): +8.6
10. Jim Harbaugh, Stanford (2007-10) and Michigan (2015-23): +8.5
11. Blake Anderson, Arkansas State (2014-20) and Utah State (2021-23): +8.5
12. Steve Spurrier, South Carolina (2005-15): +8.2
13. Greg Schiano, Rutgers (2005-11 and 2020-24): +7.8
14. Jeff Brohm, Western Kentucky (2014-16), Purdue (2017-22) and Louisville (2023-24): +7.7
15. David Cutcliffe, Duke (2008-21): +7.7
If we are looking for pure overachievement and aren’t in the mood to reward coaches for winning at schools that always win, this is again a pretty good list. Petersen was spectacular at both Boise State and Washington, while Briles, Pinkel, Monken and Patterson all won big at schools that hadn’t won big in quite a while. (Monken, in fact, is still winning big.) Blake Anderson’s presence surprised me, but most of the names here are extremely well regarded. And Saban’s presence at No. 4, despite coaching at one of the bluest of blue-blood programs, is a pretty good indicator of just how special his reign at Alabama was.
Still, looking only at performance against expectations obviously sells coaches like Saban and Smart short. Saban is probably the best head coach in the sport’s history but ranks only fourth on the above list. Meanwhile, Smart has overachieved by only 6.0 points above the historic baseline in his nine seasons at Georgia thanks to the high bar predecessor Mark Richt set. But he has also won two national titles, overcoming Georgia’s history of falling just short and at least briefly surpassing Saban as well. If our goal is to measure coaching prowess, we need to account for raw quality too.
The best coaches of the past 20 years
If we combine raw SP+ averages with this performance versus baseline average, we can come up with a pretty decent overall coach rating. We can debate the weights involved, but here’s what an overall rating looks like if we use 60% performance versus baseline and 40% SP+ average:
I always like to say that numbers make great starting points for a conversation, and this is a pretty good starting point. Anyone reading this would probably tweak this list to suit their own preferences, and while it probably isn’t surprising that Pinkel is in the top 20, seeing him fourth, ahead of Meyer, Harbaugh and others, is a bit jarring. (I promise that this Mizzou alum didn’t put his finger on the scales.) Regardless, this is a fun mix of guys who won big at big schools and guys who won pretty big at pretty big schools. That was the goal of the exercise.
Maybe the most confusing coach in this top 20 is Dabo Swinney. Clemson had enjoyed just one AP top-five finish in its history before he took over 16 years ago, and he has led the Tigers to 2 national titles, 6 top-five finishes and 7 CFP appearances. And while they haven’t had a true, title-caliber team in a few years, they’ve still won two of the past three ACC crowns. How is he only 10th?
The main culprit for Swinney’s lower-than-expected ranking is his recent performance — it has been inferior to both national title standards and his standards. Since we’re using a team’s performance against 20-year averages, a lot of this rating is basically comparing Swinney to himself, and he hasn’t quite measured up of late.
From 2012 to 2020, Swinney’s average rating was an incredible 17.0, which would have ranked second to only Saban on the list above. But his average over the past four seasons is only 3.6.
Part of what made Saban so impressive was how long he managed to clear the bar he himself was setting in Tuscaloosa. Per SP+, his best team was his 14th — the 2020 team that won his sixth and final title at Bama. While Swinney was basically matching Saban’s standard 12 years into their respective tenures, Saban continued at a particularly high level for at least three more years while Swinney fell off the pace.
Comparing Saban, Swinney and Smart year by year, we see that Smart was hitting Saban-esque levels seven seasons into his tenure, but his rating has fallen off each of the past two seasons. Even Saban slipped starting in Year 15, even though he still had nearly the best program in the sport for a couple more years.
The best coaches of 2025
Six of the top seven coaches on the list above are either retired or coaching in the NFL now, so let’s focus our gaze specifically on the guys who will be leading college teams out onto the field in 2025. Using the same 20-year sample as above — which cuts off the tenure of Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz but includes everything else — here’s how the current crop of FBS head coaches has performed at the FBS level. We’ll break this into two samples: the guys who have coached for at least four years in this sample and the guys who have coached between one and three years.
Our May top 10 list featured eight guys who have been head coaches for at least four years; all eight are represented on this list, including four of the top five. (Sarkisian has averaged a 13.8 rating over the past two seasons, which is a top-five level, but his overall run as head coach at Washington, USC and Texas has featured a number of ups and downs.)
Maybe the name that jumps out the most above is Josh Heupel. I think anyone would consider him a very good coach (he’s 37-15 overall), but he doesn’t exactly draw any “best in the game?” hype. He benefited from a positive situation at UCF, where he inherited a rising program from Scott Frost in 2019 and produced big ratings in his first couple of years on the job. But his average rating at Tennessee has been a solid 14.0 as well; the Volunteers had been up and down for years, but he has produced four top-20 SP+ ratings in a row and two top-10s in the past three years. He might not be getting the credit he deserves for that.
All in all, I enjoy this list. We’ve got mostly predictable names at the top, we’ve got some oldies but (mostly) goodies spread throughout, and we’ve got room for up-and-comers like Jeff Traylor too. This 60-40 approach probably doesn’t give enough respect to the Chris Creightons of the world — the Eastern Michigan coach has overachieved against EMU’s baseline by 7.2 points per season, which is a fantastic average, but at such a hard job, his Eagles have still averaged only a minus-14.4 SP+ rating during his tenure. Still, this is a mostly solid approach.
Now let’s talk about some small-sample all-stars.
Four of the top six of this list coached in the College Football Playoff last season, and while the guys ranked fifth and sixth made our May top 10 list, the guys who won big at SMU and Indiana, not Oregon and Notre Dame, take priority here. I was honestly floored that Curt Cignetti didn’t make our top 10 list; he led James Madison to one of the best FBS debuts ever, going 19-4 in 2022-23, then he moved to Bloomington and led Indiana — INDIANA! — to 11 wins in his first season there.
On this list, however, Rhett Lashlee tops even Cignetti. I’m not sure we’ve talked enough about the job he has done at SMU. He, too, inherited a rising program, as Sonny Dykes had done some of the nitty-gritty work in getting the Mustangs back on their feet (with help from an offensive coordinator named Rhett Lashlee). SMU hadn’t produced a top-50 ranking since 1985 before Dykes did so for three straight seasons (2019-21). But after holding steady in his first year replacing Dykes, Lashlee’s program has ignited: 12-2 and 24th in SP+ in 2023, then 11-3 and 12th in 2024. Looking specifically at the 2021-24 range, as the game has undergone so much change, Lashlee’s 16.8 average rating ranks second overall, behind only Smart (18.0) and ahead of Kiffin (15.1), Cignetti (15.0), Odom (15.0), Heupel (14.0) and Day (13.9).
Along with quite a few others here, Lashlee made my 2024 list of 30 coaches who would define the next decade; he’d definitely still be on the list — along with new additions like GJ Kinne and perhaps Fran Brown — if I remade that list today.
It’s 2025 MLB All-Star Home Run Derby day in Atlanta!
Some of the most dynamic home run hitters in baseball will be taking aim at the Truist Park stands on Monday (8 p.m. ET on ESPN) in one of the most anticipated events of the summer.
While the prospect of a back-to-back champion is out of the picture — 2024 winner Teoscar Hernandez is not a part of this year’s field — a number of exciting stars will be taking the field, including Atlanta’s own Matt Olson, who replaced Ronald Acuna Jr. just three days before the event. Will Olson make a run in front of his home crowd? Will Cal Raleigh show off the power that led to 38 home runs in the first half? Or will one of the younger participants take the title?
We have your one-stop shop for everything Derby related, from predictions to live updates once we get underway to analysis and takeaways at the night’s end.
MLB Home Run Derby field
Cal Raleigh, Seattle Mariners (38 home runs in 2025)
James Wood, Washington Nationals (24)
Junior Caminero, Tampa Bay Rays (23)
Byron Buxton, Minnesota Twins (21)
Brent Rooker, Athletics (20)
Matt Olson, Atlanta Braves (17)
Jazz Chisholm Jr., New York Yankees (17)
Oneil Cruz, Pittsburgh Pirates (16)
Live updates
Who is going to win the Derby and who will be the runner-up?
Jeff Passan: Raleigh. His swing is perfect for the Derby: He leads MLB this season in both pull percentage and fly ball percentage, so it’s not as if he needs to recalibrate it to succeed. He has also become a prolific hitter from the right side this season — 16 home runs in 102 at-bats — and his ability to switch between right- and left-handed pitching offers a potential advantage. No switch-hitter (or catcher for that matter) has won a Home Run Derby. The Big Dumper is primed to be the first, beating Buxton in the finals.
Alden Gonzalez: Cruz. He might be wildly inconsistent at this point in his career, but he is perfect for the Derby — young enough to possess the stamina required for a taxing event that could become exhausting in the Atlanta heat; left-handed, in a ballpark where the ball carries out better to right field; and, most importantly, capable of hitting balls at incomprehensible velocities. Raleigh will put on a good show from both sides of the plate but will come in second.
Buster Olney: Olson. He is effectively pinch-hitting for Acuna, and because he received word in the past 72 hours of his participation, he hasn’t had the practice rounds that the other competitors have been going through. But he’s the only person in this group who has done the Derby before, which means he has experienced the accelerated pace, adrenaline and push of the crowd.
His pitcher, Eddie Perez, knows something about performing in a full stadium in Atlanta. And, as Olson acknowledged in a conversation Sunday, the park generally favors left-handed hitters because of the larger distances that right-handed hitters must cover in left field.
Jesse Rogers: Olson. Home-field advantage will mean something this year as hitting in 90-plus degree heat and humidity will be an extra challenge in Atlanta. Olson understands that and can pace himself accordingly. Plus, he was a late addition. He has got nothing to lose. He’ll outlast the young bucks in the field. And I’m not putting Raleigh any lower than second — his first half screams that he’ll be in the finals against Olson.
Jorge Castillo: Wood. His mammoth power isn’t disputed — he can jack baseballs to all fields. But the slight defect in his power package is that he doesn’t hit the ball in the air nearly as often as a typical slugger. Wood ranks 126th out of 155 qualified hitters across the majors in fly ball percentage. And he still has swatted 24 home runs this season. So, in an event where he’s going to do everything he can to lift baseballs, hitting fly balls won’t be an issue, and Wood is going to show off that gigantic power en route to a victory over Cruz in the finals.
Who will hit the longest home run of the night — and how far?
Passan: Cruz hits the ball harder than anyone in baseball history. He’s the choice here, at 493 feet.
Gonzalez: If you exclude the Coors Field version, there have been just six Statcast-era Derby home runs that have traveled 497-plus feet. They were compiled by two men: Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton. James Wood — all 6-foot-7, 234 pounds of him — will become the third.
Olney: James Wood has the easy Stanton- and Judge-type power, and he will clear the Chophouse with the longest homer. Let’s say 497 feet.
Rogers: Hopefully he doesn’t injure himself doing it, but Buxton will break out his massive strength and crush a ball at least 505 feet. I don’t see him advancing far in the event, but for one swing, he’ll own the night.
Castillo: Cruz hits baseballs hard and far. He’ll crush a few bombs, and one will reach an even 500 feet.
Who is the one slugger fans will know much better after the Derby?
Passan: Buxton capped his first half with a cycle on Saturday, and he’ll carry that into the Derby, where he will remind the world why he was baseball’s No. 1 prospect in 2015. Buxton’s talent has never been in question, just his health. And with his body feeling right, he has the opportunity to put on a show fans won’t soon forget.
Olney: Caminero isn’t a big name and wasn’t a high-end prospect like Wood was earlier in his career. Just 3½ years ago, Caminero was dealt to the Rays by the Cleveland Guardians in a relatively minor November trade for pitcher Tobias Myers. But since then, he has refined his ability to cover inside pitches and is blossoming this year into a player with ridiculous power. He won’t win the Derby, but he’ll open some eyes.
What’s the one moment we’ll all be talking about long after this Derby ends?
Gonzalez: The incredible distances and velocities that will be reached, particularly by Wood, Cruz, Caminero, Raleigh and Buxton. The hot, humid weather at Truist Park will only aid the mind-blowing power that will be on display Monday night.
Rogers: The exhaustion on the hitter’s faces, swinging for home run after home run in the heat and humidity of Hot-lanta!
Castillo: Cruz’s 500-foot blast and a bunch of other lasers he hits in the first two rounds before running out of gas in the finals.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike