How Zach Werenski has leveled up during an emotional season for the Blue Jackets
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Kristen Shilton
Eternal optimism is a job requirement in professional sports. So is balancing expectations with reality.
It’s a fine line, and one that hockey veterans like Columbus Blue Jackets general manager Don Waddell walk regularly. And while a positive attitude alone won’t win championships, there’s always that chance a team — or player — will surpass an executive’s loftiest preseason ambitions.
Waddell can admit that’s the case for Columbus now. The formerly beleaguered Blue Jackets are (shockingly) still in the hunt for a playoff spot in the final days of the NHL regular season — thanks in large part to their bus-driving, ice-tilting, game-changing defenseman Zach Werenski.
Even Waddell didn’t see all of that coming.
“I’d be lying if I said I thought Werenski would be having this good of a year,” Waddell told ESPN last month. “We were hoping he could. Now it’s happening. The way he’s playing and carrying our team, without him, I don’t know where we’d be.”
Werenski can forgive Waddell his previous doubts. The blueliner didn’t exactly predict such a triumphant season, either. But like Waddell, he had faith something like this was within him, a campaign so undeniably strong it captured the entire league’s attention and put Werenski firmly in the discussion as a Norris Trophy contender; in a recent poll of PHWA voters by ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski, Werenski earned 48% of the first-place votes.
It’s no pipe dream now. Werenski is the real deal.
“I feel like in years past, that’s kind of slipped for me, the idea of being in that Norris conversation,” Werenski told ESPN this week. “And now I’m getting back to a level where people can talk about me in that space, right?
“I just want to help this team win. I feel like, if that’s happening, then you’re going to be talked about with the [Cale] Makars and the [Quinn] Hughes and the [Rasmus] Dahlins. I want to be in that conversation where people look at me as a number one defenseman, and I feel like I’m starting to accomplish that.”
It’s a classic chicken-or-the-egg argument. Are the Blue Jackets unexpectedly thriving because of Werenski? Or is Werenski flourishing because of Columbus’ overall commitment to this surprising Cinderella-esque season?
Right now, the answer is irrelevant. The Blue Jackets have a handful of games left to secure the Eastern Conference’s second wild-card spot and make their first postseason appearance since 2019-20. Werenski — with a team-leading 74 points in 75 tilts — will do whatever it takes to get there. And if that push winds up capturing him a few more Norris votes, that’s a happy byproduct of this memorable run.
“It feels good,” Werenski said. “You don’t go into the season thinking that’s going to happen. But it’s been a special year here, and it’s a spot that we haven’t been in here in Columbus for a number of years. Like, if you told us, 72 or 73 games ago, that we’d be playing meaningful hockey right now? We’d be pretty happy about it. I feel like our team has really taken a step forward.”
IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO TALK about Columbus without mentioning Johnny Gaudreau.
The late Blue Jackets forward and his brother Matthew were killed by an alleged drunk driver while riding bikes in their home state of New Jersey last August. That tragic loss has defined this season for the Blue Jackets, on and off the ice. Players are united in grief and have proudly carried Gaudreau’s memory with them throughout the season.
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Blue Jackets open game without left winger to honor Johnny Gaudreau
The Blue Jackets honor Johnny Gaudreau by starting their game against the Panthers with no left winger and letting 13 seconds run off the clock.
Waddell saw how that shared experience bonded his players and opted not to disrupt their chemistry with any significant trades before March’s deadline.
“With what we’ve been through this year, the way the guys have hung together and played, I thought it was important not to trade anyone off the island or bring too many guys on the island,” Waddell said. “This is a different year. I probably would have handled it differently if the circumstances weren’t what they are. But we also felt, with the way we played all year, that we had a pretty good team, so we didn’t want to change the group too much. We’re having a phenomenal year under the circumstances.”
By Waddell’s own admission, Werenski warrants a lion’s share of the credit for Columbus’ ascension. He’s been a beacon of consistency for the Blue Jackets as they’ve navigated another season with challenging health issues: captain Boone Jenner missed 56 games with a freak shoulder injury suffered in training camp; Erik Gudbranson was sidelined 66 games following a shoulder injury in Columbus’ season opener; Sean Monahan missed two months with a sprained wrist; and Kirill Marchenko was out for a month with a broken jaw.
Who knows how Columbus’ season would have played out had they been fully healthy? The good thing is that Werenski has been mostly healthy — and that in itself is a rarity. The 27-year-old has dealt with his own onslaught of injury problems over the years, including a season-ending sports hernia in 2021 and shoulder issue that cost him all but 13 games in 2022-23.
Werenski is convinced that the litany of past troubles he’s had to overcome affected how he’s viewed on the outside. And that simply couldn’t continue.
So, Werenski dug in. Some of his previous injuries were unavoidable, but Werenski became newly determined to get proactive after going through that last shoulder surgery. His new offseason regime zeroed in on more soft tissue work, with stretching and hip mobility activities. He leaned into a yoga routine, dialed in his diet and focused on sleep quality. Call it a back-to-basics approach — one that paid off.
These last two seasons are the first since 2018-19 that Werenski has appeared in at least 70 games. That has included consecutive offseasons where he could train properly and prepare accordingly. He learned plenty about himself in the process.
“I’ve definitely realized that since I’m turning 28 this summer, it takes a lot more work to be ready for seasons than it did when I was 19, 20, or 21,” he said. “I feel like I’m more focused in certain areas because of that. It’s not drastic changes, but you’re trying to help yourself. If something happens in the game that I can’t prevent, I can live with that. But it’s the groins or the hip flexors, if those start to get injured, those are things I’m a little frustrated with because those are preventable.”
The shift in his workflow speaks for itself as Werenski was typically relentless in achieving — and preserving — optimal health. He relied on short, intense sessions with the sports-specific yoga team at Joga in conjunction with trainer Brian Galivan of GVN Performance in Michigan (where other NHLers including Dylan Larkin and Alex DeBrincat work out) to start moving the needle. Their plans worked. Werenski emerged with a career-high 57 points in 70 games in 2023-24, and he has eclipsed that during what’s unfurling rapidly as the most productive season of his professional life.
Right now, he trails only Makar in overall points (74) among league blueliners, is third in even-strength goals (14) and leads all blueliners in scoring per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 (42). He has been rewriting Columbus’ record books, too; Werenski collected his 260th career assist earlier this season to pass Columbus legend Rick Nash for the franchise lead in helpers.
If Werenski always knew what he was capable of, then revealing it just took longer than he thought.
“A lot of the question marks about me have been health-related. But I feel like I’ve always believed in myself,” he said. “I feel like last year I had a pretty good year offensively. I was healthy this past summer as well. Injury troubles in the offseason have hurt my training and hurt my preparation. And I feel like part of that has gone into maybe reasons why I haven’t had that success I’m having this year. But also last year isn’t where we wanted to be as a group.”
COLUMBUS FINISHED 2023-24 losing five of its final seven games, finishing 29th overall with a 27-43-12 record. Werenski felt he had a good season and took a step forward. So, he licked his wounds playing for Team USA at the IIHF World Championships and set renewed sights on making this NHL season a big one — for the Blue Jackets and for himself.
Werenski’s vision board contained two things: push his way into Norris Trophy talks and be named to the USA’s roster for last February’s 4 Nations Face-Off tournament.
Both aspirations have come to fruition.
“I wanted to get back in the top echelon of defensemen conversation,” he said. “It’s hard to say, ‘Oh, I want to win a Norris,’ right? Everyone wants to win a Norris, and I know it might not ever happen for me, and I’m okay with that. I don’t really have personal goals in terms of goals and points or assists or any of that stuff. I think that all just kind of happens, I guess. But then my other goal was making the 4 Nations team, and that happened, too.”
It was on that international stage Werenski showed off his evolution into a No. 1 defenseman. When the USA lost Charlie McAvoy to an upper-body injury, it was Werenski who stepped up to fill the void. He paced the entire tournament field among defensemen with six points in four games while urging the USA to a championship final (where they lost to Canada, 3-2, in overtime).
That experience was a precursor to the upcoming 2026 Olympics. The NHL hasn’t sent players to the Games since 2014, and after how Werenski performed at 4 Nations, he seems quite likely to secure a roster spot for Milan.
Werenski is cautious about expressing excitement over the Olympics just yet — “there’s a lot of hockey before that” — but the 4 Nations Face-Off offered him something greater for now than the promise of other best-on-best invitations in the future.
“It gave me more confidence to tell myself I can play [at this high level] and I can make an impact,” he said. “I feel like you always have, maybe not question marks as a player, but there’s always a little bit of doubt at certain points. You ask yourself, ‘is this season a fluke? Should I be on this team? Can I play my game?’
“I left there and I was like, alright, I can do this, I can hang in this, and I can play. And I feel like that was pretty rewarding for all the hard work that’s been put in over the years.”
That conviction came across to Werenski’s tournament teammates. By the eve of the final, there were few superlatives he wasn’t earning from guys relying on Werenski to anchor the U.S. back end.
“It’s his confidence with the puck,” Matthew Tkachuk said of Werenski. “He’s all over the ice, and that’s a good thing. He’s never out of position. He’s always leading the rush. And that’s as a defenseman, which you never see.
“He’s their engine for their team in Columbus, and he’s doing an unbelievable job this year. I love watching him play. I know we play nothing alike and two different positions, but he’s definitely turned himself into one of the most fun players to watch.”
Werenski appreciates the accolades without letting them inflate his ego. He has a healthy skepticism about this pinnacle and how it will influence opinions — and expectations — in years ahead. Werenski won’t downplay his position either, though. He’s Columbus’ highest-paid player, in the third season of a six-year, $57.5 million contract. The Blue Jackets have bet on these being his best years, and Werenski has no plans to disappoint.
“At the end of the day, I am in my prime. I have been in the league nine years,” Werenski said. “I put the work in. I don’t think this success is a fluke. The [level] of play that I’m at now, this is my standard now in terms of how I have to impact the game for Columbus.”
His frequent defensive partner Ivan Provorov isn’t worried. He has watched Werenski dominate this season in a way that suggests it’s just the beginning of further breakout performances.
“I don’t think a lot of people are underestimating him now,” Provorov said, with a laugh. “He’s a great player in all aspects of the game; he can move the puck, skate, make plays. He’s a big part of this team. I think his stats speak for themselves. Just his overall ability to skate all over the ice and be everywhere is very important and why he’s a big part of this team and why we trust him to take over again and again.”
WATCHING THE SCOREBOARD is a nightly ritual for Werenski and his teammates.
Columbus had been neck and neck with the Montreal Canadiens and New York Rangers to grab the East’s final playoff berth. It was deflating to see the Canadiens’ overtime win against Florida a few nights ago. Equally uplifting was, on that same night, the New York Islanders‘ loss to Tampa Bay that gave Columbus some breathing room in the chase.
Then the Blue Jackets fell to the Colorado Avalanche on Thursday, while Montreal beat up on the Boston Bruins. The Canadiens were pulling away — but still not entirely out of Columbus’ reach. Two losses over the weekend made their climb more challenging.
That’s the roller coaster of emotions Werenski is expecting as the Blue Jackets speed towards the finish line of this regular season, hoping they don’t run out of runway.
It’s possible that Columbus won’t punch that elusive playoff ticket this season, and it’s another too-early offseason waiting in the wings. Disappointing, sure. But that fate doesn’t feel so daunting now. The Blue Jackets are, after all, just getting started.
“Our mindset changes after this season, right? We’re so close,” Werenski said. “I think we came into this year seeing what was going to happen, what team we were going to be. Let’s say we don’t make the playoffs, though. Well next year, we are coming to camp and it’s realistic, like we’re going to make the playoffs. That’s our next step.”
It’s not lip service, either. The Blue Jackets have a promising core in place headlined by Adam Fantilli, Kent Johnson, and Marchenko, plus viable veterans in Monahan, Jenner and, of course, Werenski. Those players have pledged some of their best years to Columbus for a reason.
There are intangible factors as well.
Columbus’ impact players are forever driven by losing Gaudreau, who was as motivated as they are to see the Blue Jackets’ franchise take off again. His jersey hangs proudly in Columbus’ dressing room. Werenski said multiple players per day come to the rink in the Gaudreau hoodies Columbus wore at the Stadium Series in March.
“We know how much he’s impacted this organization and this team, and he’s going to continue to impact it every day,” Werenski said. “We just try to honor him as best we can, and that’s by playing hard and enjoying the game, because that’s what he did.”
This is a tight-knit group. A family in its own right. And they’re on a mission to prove the best is yet to come.
For Werenski, that belief has been a long time coming.
“We have to go into camp next year and not be like, ‘Oh, we hope to make playoffs.’ No. We’re making it,” he said. “We’ve wasted long enough here, missing the playoffs, and now we’re in a spot where our younger guys are a year older and our veteran guys are also a year older, right? They’re coming to a later stage in their careers, and there’s not as much time left.
“I feel like our mindset changes that way. And I feel like this season has definitely given us more confidence, especially for next season to say we’re going to make the playoffs.”
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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.
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