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Former West Virginia athletic director Oliver Luck still remembers, with vivid clarity, the day Pittsburgh and Syracuse officially announced they were bailing on the Big East to move to the ACC. He was headed east from Morgantown to the West Virginia-Maryland football game on Sept. 17, 2011, and made a plan to get to league commissioner John Marinatto as quickly as possible.

The two met alone in a suite inside Maryland’s football stadium. Marinatto sat in a high-backed chair at the bar as the two briefly discussed how exactly the Big East would survive as a football-playing conference. The elephant in the room, of course, was that Pitt and Syracuse had delivered a double gut punch that sent shock waves across the league, signaling to every remaining football-playing member that the time had come to forget about conference loyalties and look out for itself.

Neither said what appears obvious, in hindsight. Even if they wanted to, they never had the chance. Marinatto got a phone call five minutes into their meeting. Luck watched as Marinatto turned ashen and pale, then fell to the ground.

“I remember saying to myself, ‘Oh my god, the conference is falling apart, the commissioner just [fainted] in front of me and I don’t know what to do,'” Luck said in a phone interview, adding that the call concerned Dave Gavitt, the Big East founder, who died just as his beloved league was breaking up.

Luck raced to find medical personnel, who helped Marinatto regain consciousness. But there is a reason, 10 years later, that Luck remembers that moment so clearly. That day serves as a point of demarcation where nothing would ever be the same for the Big East or its league members.

In short order, TCU pulled out of its agreement to join the Big East after just 11 months. Forty days after Luck met with Marinatto, West Virginia announced it was moving on to the Big 12, beating out Louisville in a high-stakes race that drew in high-powered politicians and pitted two Big East members against each other for the final open spot.

Skepticism among remaining teams was high; trust was low. Presidents, athletic directors and coaches made calls behind one another’s backs to find a secure conference home that would not only provide stability but also a financial windfall that guaranteed their own futures, all while sitting in Big East meetings identifying schools to add in an effort to save the conference. As Big East officials worked on creating a Western flank with Boise State and San Diego State, remaining schools Louisville, Cincinnati, UConn, South Florida and Rutgers kept making entreaties to other conferences to find an escape route.

To be sure, the Big East did not set off the wave of realignment that impacted every Power 5 conference between 2010 and 2012. The Big Ten did that when it announced in 2009 that it would begin exploring expansion possibilities before ultimately adding Nebraska in 2010.

But the Big East was the only major conference to lose half its football-playing members over that span, and that ended up delivering a blow from which the conference could not recover. Ultimately, the basketball-playing contingent retained the Big East name and split off; the remaining football-playing members joined with nine new schools and formed the American Athletic Conference.

For those with deep Big East connections who watched the events unfold in real time, hurt feelings, anger and sadness remain 10 years later. Marinatto, who died in June at age 64, blamed himself for what happened to his beloved league on his watch, according to multiple former colleagues. He never granted an interview after he resigned as Big East commissioner in 2012.

“I don’t know if anybody could have stopped what happened from happening,” one former league official said. “Especially when you had schools hell-bent on taking care of themselves.”

Of course, the schools that left view what happened much differently.

“We were all aware of the movement happening around us,” former Syracuse athletic director Daryl Gross said. “We just had a TV deal fall through with the Big East, and the Big East is looking like a burning ship, and there’s a cruise ship here to pick us up. So what are you going to do?”

TO UNDERSTAND HOW everything unraveled for the Big East, a short history lesson is in order. The Big East formed in 1979 as a basketball conference and stood proudly behind that sport, even rejecting Penn State as a member in the early 1980s.

But as football grew in power and financial stature, the league invited in Miami, Virginia Tech, West Virginia and several others, and began sponsoring football in 1991, allowing long-standing league members like Pitt, Syracuse and Boston College to play football in a conference for the first time. But doing so always left the league slightly off-kilter compared to others because of the unusual football/basketball dynamic.

“Ever since the start of the Big East, there always was concern about the football schools breaking away,” one former Big East official said.

Realignment hit the Big East first in 2003 when Miami and Virginia Tech left for the ACC. That summer, the remaining Big East football-playing schools decided they wanted to split away, believing their interests were no longer aligned with those of the basketball-playing schools. Kevin O’Malley, a TV executive-turned-consultant, was brought in to help then-commissioner Mike Tranghese keep the league together.

“They had actually drafted a letter that was going to be sent,” O’Malley recalled. “As far as they were concerned, the basketball schools were history. What I pointed out was something that is a recurring theme through all of this, which is how much the basketball schools and the football schools needed each other. It took a while, but we put Humpty-Dumpty back together again.”

Boston College eventually left too. Though the league added Louisville, USF and Cincinnati to fill in the gaps, the growing importance of football from a revenue-generating standpoint, most importantly during television contract negotiations and making sure it had a seat at the table in the old Bowl Championship Series, only widened the chasm between the football and basketball schools.

It became much harder for the league to not only figure out its identity — caught between its basketball tradition and the riches of football — but also to keep everybody moving forward together.

“There are no rules in this game of realignment, right? There wasn’t an arbiter. You couldn’t go to the NCAA or the federal government. It was a game we likened to musical chairs. You don’t want to be the one standing when the music stops.”

Former West Virginia athletic director Oliver Luck

“Over time, it got more contentious because the basketball side was always wary of the football side,” one former Big East athletic director said. “And as we drove some of those ideas, it was viewed as more of a football play instead of a league play.”

That essentially is at the heart of where so much went wrong, starting in December 2009. When the Big Ten announced it would explore expansion over the ensuing 12-18 months, athletic directors across the country realized a seismic shift in the landscape was about to happen. Some schools and conferences would end up with an enormous financial windfall, while others would scramble to find a suitable home.

“The day the Big Ten announced that,” former Pitt athletic director Steve Pederson said, “I think everybody said, ‘OK, here we go.’ If you don’t know whether you’re going to be one that’s going to be selected, the risk is high. So we really tried to come up with some kind of way to cement the Big East together. Understandably, a lot of schools just didn’t want to make that kind of commitment. They said, ‘Well, what if what if we had a chance to go to one of these conferences?'”

Gross remembers attending one set of meetings before the conference basketball tournament in 2011, looking at the agenda and seeing nothing listed on the topic of expansion.

“To this day, I have no idea why no one wanted to touch the subject,” Gross said. “It was almost like, if we don’t talk about it, then we don’t have to worry about it.”

He raised those concerns during the meeting. Afterward, another athletic director walked up to him and asked, “Are you guys leaving?”

Gross maintains that at that point Syracuse had no plans to leave. “I was just trying to figure out, ‘What’s the plan?'” he said. “I felt so lost. I thought for sure this would be the biggest discussion topic in the entire room.”

Whether the league was proactive or not is a matter of perspective. Multiple times, the Big East tried to form a partnership with several Big 12 schools, but it was only in response to the possibility that Texas and Oklahoma would leave.

Once Texas and Oklahoma decided to stay put, the idea fizzled.

Marinatto sent a bottle of champagne to then-Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe to congratulate him on keeping his league from disintegrating.

Soon, there wouldn’t be much to celebrate.

THE BIGGEST DISCUSSION topic in the Big East became its television rights. At the time, the Big East was working with ESPN on a new rights deal that would bump its annual payout from $36 million per year to $155 million per year. All told, the new deal would be worth more than $1.3 billion over the life of the contract. As its television partner at the time, ESPN had an exclusive negotiating window to make a deal happen with the Big East.

But there were multiple presidents and athletic directors who wanted to wait and take the Big East to the open market once that window with ESPN closed, believing its entire rights package was worth more than what ESPN was offering. That group included Georgetown, Pitt and Rutgers.

“We just felt like at the time that the deal didn’t reflect our value,” Pederson said. “As you looked at the numbers, you just said, ‘If you’re going to sign a long-term deal that you feel is undervalued, then you’re just going to be sorry almost the minute you sign it.’ We understood we were not in the same position at that point as the Big Ten or the ACC, but we felt we were in a better position than the way the numbers came out.”

Though the majority of league schools wanted to take the deal, those with misgivings controlled the conversation and became the loudest voices in the room. Things came to a head in May 2011 when the newly expanded Pac-12 with Colorado and Utah aboard announced a television package of its own with ESPN and Fox worth a reported $3 billion — substantially greater than the Big East offer.

That caused everyone in the league to reevaluate what was on the table, and the decision ultimately was made to walk away from the proposed TV deal.

“That deal came out of nowhere, and people started to ask, ‘If they’re willing to pay that for the Pac-12, why wouldn’t we be able to get more?'” one person with knowledge of the discussions said. “So now everybody’s thinking Comcast has all this money, and we had a year to go before the end of our contract, so people said we should go to the open market.”

One former Big East official said ESPN asked for a counteroffer, but none ever came. O’Malley described multiple athletic directors as being “in disbelief” that the league walked away from the deal.

“I’ve always been the ‘one in the hand is better than two in the bush,’ and that would have kept us very stable,” then-Louisville athletic director Tom Jurich said. “But I was the newcomer talking. We were very happy where we were, and maybe those schools weren’t happy. Maybe they had bigger aspirations. I don’t know.”

Officials from the schools that eventually left deny they were in negotiations with other conferences at the time the TV deal was nixed. But there are some former Big East officials who remain dubious.

One went so far as to say “sabotage” would be an accurate way to describe the way some schools led the push against the TV deal only to later leave, though others in the room at the time felt that was too strong of a word.

“There were so many people that just loved the conference and were so invested in it, and then you had double agents in the room,” another former Big East official said.

Multiple sources pushed back on that assertion.

“There was sincere and genuine effort put towards trying to figure out a way to shore ourselves up and present more value to the market to capitalize on our deal,” one former school official said. “This theory that we deliberately tried to stop the TV deal from happening because we were all at the finish line with other conferences is bulls—.”

Multiple sources confirmed that Pitt and Rutgers tried early in the process to get league members to agree to a grant of rights, in which schools relinquish control of their TV rights to the conference. But there was no consensus. With no grant of rights, no expansion plan and no television deal, there was simply nothing to hold the league together.

Add to that a perceived vacuum in leadership — with the more mild-mannered and less well-connected Marinatto now the commissioner instead of Tranghese — and it seemed like a foregone conclusion that the competing agendas threatened to fracture the conference for good.

“There was no guarantee if we did that deal things weren’t going to still shift, but it would have helped the schools left behind to at least have that in their pocket, and if we had to renegotiate it down, fine, but we still had it,” a former Big East official said.

Despite the behind-the-scenes drama, league officials spoke optimistically at media days in Rhode Island in August 2011 about the lucrative potential for a TV package despite turning down ESPN. One league official told The New York Times, “We’re excited. It feels like the tide is turning in our favor.”

Clearly, not everyone felt that way.

Gross, who was in favor of taking the TV deal, said once that fell through “things were fragile and could fall apart or crumble.” He said he first heard from the ACC in early September, recalling that his phone rang as he walked to his car following a tennis match at the US Open. When ACC officials asked whether Syracuse would be interested in joining, Gross said yes without hesitation.

Within a week, the Syracuse trustees met at a hotel in Beverly Hills, California — where they had traveled to watch Syracuse play USC in football. Gross made a presentation, and the group voted to accept the ACC invitation. Similarly, the situation with Pitt and the ACC moved quickly in September. Both Gross and Pederson said they had no idea they would be joining together until the end of the process.

Despite the uncertainty and fragility of the Big East, multiple people described feeling “blindsided” that Syracuse and Pitt — two of the league’s most identifiable members, including one founding member — would leave. One person said it “shook the conference to its core.”

“Syracuse and the Big East were synonymous with one another for the entire history of the conference,” a former Big East official said. “When they left, there was no recovering.”

Added Jurich: “I know a lot of people’s feelings were hurt, especially the schools that had been in that league for a while. They were crushed because they had such a great loyalty and relationships with those schools.”

Pederson, when asked whether he thought the decision to leave surprised the league, said Pitt was always upfront about the situation. “I guess that would be from their perspective,” he said. “Nobody knew exactly where anybody might be going, and all those negotiations are very private. So maybe there were people that were surprised. I don’t know.”

At that point, any existing loyalties seemed to vanish.

“When one starts splitting away, then the avalanche occurs,” Jurich said. “Everybody was scrambling. It’s, ‘What are we going to do? How are we going to survive? How do we keep our head above water now that the TV deal is out?’ You don’t have a chance to use that as any leverage. From our standpoint, all I cared about was our program.”

Meanwhile, TCU, which agreed in November 2010 to join the Big East as a way of boosting its profile as a member of a BCS conference, pulled out to join the Big 12 in mid-October. By then, the Big East was pushing hard for Boise State to join as a football-only member — all while Louisville and West Virginia were jockeying for the last open spot in the Big 12.

“There are no rules in this game of realignment, right?” Luck said. “There wasn’t an arbiter. You couldn’t go to the NCAA or the federal government. It was a game we likened to musical chairs. You don’t want to be the one standing when the music stops.”

BOISE STATE PRESIDENT Robert Kustra took a keen interest in realignment, believing his football program had positioned itself well for a move into a bigger conference with better access to the BCS. In 2010, he met with the presidents of Utah, TCU and BYU to discuss whether Boise State was ready to make a move from the WAC to the Mountain West.

“I gave my salesman pitch, and then I said to them, ‘How can I know that the Mountain West is going to be the Mountain West it is today?'” Kustra recalled in a phone interview. “‘Are you all going to be there for the Mountain West?’ And these presidents, they were either lying through their teeth or they were completely ignorant of their athletic directors’ plans.”

Only a few days after Boise State announced it would join the Mountain West, Utah accepted an invitation to join the Pac-10. Then BYU announced it was going independent in football. In November 2010, TCU agreed to join the Big East. This was not the Mountain West the Broncos agreed to join.

At this point, Boise State had played in two BCS games as an undefeated team (2007 and 2010 Fiesta Bowls) but had never gotten a legitimate shot at playing for a national championship. Beyond national championships, the Mountain West did not have an automatic spot into the BCS, meaning Boise State would have to go undefeated every year and then hope for a selection as an at-large team.

Kustra felt he had to do something to improve those chances. He had previously lobbied the Pac-12 to no avail. So when the Big East, with an automatic bid into the BCS, called in October 2011 to see whether the Broncos would be interested in a football-only partnership, he listened.

At the time, Boise State was ranked in the top five. On paper, the move made sense: Boise State needed access to a BCS conference, and the Big East needed to fill gaps and boost its football-playing profile. As a way to make its move east more palatable, Boise State needed a travel partner from the West, boosting San Diego State into the conversation.

“I personally thought that taking the Boise State story on the road with the Big East was a great opportunity to get national coverage that we weren’t getting here in the Intermountain region,” Kustra said.

The Mountain West had taken one hit after another during realignment and could not afford to lose Boise State, its highest-profile school. Commissioner Craig Thompson worked the phones to both Kustra and then-San Diego State president Elliot Hirshman, telling them both, “There’s a lot of money being dangled in front of your face, but there’s not going to be a Big East in the long term,” according to a person with knowledge of their conversation. Thompson declined to comment for this story.

The Big East also had conversations with Air Force, Navy and Army but ultimately opted for football-only partnerships with Boise State and San Diego State. In addition, UCF, Houston and SMU would join as full-time members. The moves gave the Big East the largest footprint in the country.

But because the conference looked so different, nobody knew whether it would retain its BCS status or what a future television deal would be worth. Skepticism remained that bringing in Boise State and San Diego State from the other side of the country would actually keep the Big East together. The basketball schools were not thrilled either.

Though Boise State coach Chris Petersen and San Diego State coach Rocky Long spoke in positive terms about the move publicly, they expressed reservations privately. Long declined interview requests for this story; Petersen did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

“There were some ideas that were not ideal, but when you’re in a position like that, you start to look at everything,” Jurich said. “They were not just saying let’s put our head in the sand and say we’re fine when it truly wasn’t. Did it fit for everybody? Absolutely not, including us. It didn’t, but I don’t think you could look at and say it’s about fit when you were looking for survival.”

Several former Big East officials still believe this alignment could have worked long term at the time. But in April 2012, a plan for a four-team playoff was announced, and it became clear there would be no automatic qualifying designation for the Big East under the new format, taking away a huge advantage the league had over the Mountain West.

Marinatto resigned in May 2012 with the league in turmoil. As one friend of his said, “He was just a guy that was the student manager for the basketball team for Dave Gavitt at Providence College and was Mike Tranghese’s friend, and was handed the reins by the two of them. And the conference collapsed. That’s the weight that he carried with him.”

Whether he could have done anything differently to keep the league together is a question up for debate, considering all the outside factors that were beyond his control.

“I don’t think anybody deserves any particular blame for anything,” Pederson said.

Mike Aresco was hired as commissioner in August with an eye toward maximizing television rights. But first, Notre Dame announced it would be taking all of its Big East-affiliated sports to the ACC while remaining independent in football. When Rutgers (Big Ten) and Louisville (ACC) announced their own departures over a one-week span in November 2012, the Big East as a football-playing conference fell apart.

For good.

In mid-December 2012, the seven Big East basketball-playing schools announced a split from the football-playing schools. A few weeks later, Boise State struck a deal to return to the Mountain West. San Diego State followed shortly after that. The Broncos were given the green light to sell their home games separately from the conference’s television package, allowing them to earn more money than the other members of the conference — about $1.8 million more per year in revenues.

Kustra said the Mountain West presidents at the time called him and offered more money from television rights as a way to get Boise State back into the league.

“I’m asked, if you had to do all over again, what would you do?” Kustra said. “And I’d say, I would do exactly the way I did it. I didn’t know that the Big East was going to fold. But look what we got out of it. We landed on our feet financially. And to this day, the Mountain West is still trying to figure out what to do about that.”

Tensions over the special deal Boise State secured have grown over the past several years — and it was a major point of contention during the Mountain West’s most recent television rights negotiation.

Meanwhile, the newly reconfigured Big East – with Xavier, Creighton and Butler – has been led by Villanova basketball over the last decade, winning national titles in 2016 and 2018. But perhaps the biggest news in recent years involved UConn, which decided to go independent in football so it could rejoin the Big East, where it thrived as a basketball power. The Huskies officially rejoined in 2020 after a seven-year absence.

The American Athletic Conference — renamed and rebranded after the basketball split — has thrived as a Group of 5 conference. The league has secured the most Group of 5 automatic bids into the four-team playoff. With the playoff format soon expanding to 12 teams, its chances of making the playoff have increased. But the same could be said for Boise State in the Mountain West.

“Realignment hit us pretty hard,” said Aresco, now the AAC commissioner. “We were in disarray, making sure that the conference would survive. But it turns out, not only did we survive, we thrived immediately. We’ve been thriving ever since.”

While that is true, there are still those with a deep abiding affinity for the Big East who remain emotional about its breakup 10 years later. Because, as one former league official said, “it’s not what it was and will never be the same again.”

ESPN reporter David Hale contributed to this report.

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The All-Stars who are halfway to history in 2025

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July 15, 2025

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The All-Stars who are halfway to history in 2025

Jul 15, 2025, 07:00 AM ET

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

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Is it the coach or the program? Ranking CFB coaches while factoring in expectations

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July 15, 2025

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Is it the coach or the program? Ranking CFB coaches while factoring in expectations

  • Bill ConnellyJul 15, 2025, 07:00 AM ET

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      Bill Connelly is a writer for ESPN. He covers college football, soccer and tennis. He has been at ESPN since 2019.

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.

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It’s MLB Home Run Derby Day! Predictions, live updates and takeaways

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July 15, 2025

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It's MLB Home Run Derby Day! Predictions, live updates and takeaways

Jul 14, 2025, 07:00 AM ET

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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